Richard Scorer examines cases of death in action
For personal injury lawyers acting for claimants in fatal accident cases, inquests can be a fruitful source of evidence for a civil claim. This is notwithstanding r 42(b) of the Coroners Rules 1984, which states that no inquest verdict should be framed in a way which appears to determine any question of civil liability. The question of whether and to what extent inquest verdicts can trespass on questions of blameworthiness and, consequently civil liability, is a particularly sensitive one in regard to military deaths. There is currently much debate in the media and the armed services themselves about whether the “military covenant” has been broken, with complaints about poor equipment, inferior housing and lack of proper healthcare for service personnel. Defective equipment is a particular concern, and many complaints have been brought into sharper focus by high-profile inquests.
Particularly newsworthy have been the inquests conducted by Andrew Walker, the assistant deputy coroner for Oxfordshire. Walker was appointed in 2006 to conduct military inquests. In the majority of military
