PI Brief Update

Practice, Procedure and Fair Proceedings in the Coroner’s Court: Wilson -v- HM Senior Coroner for Birmingham and Solihull - Gordon Exall, Barrister, Zenith Chambers & Hardwicke

01/12/15. In Wilson -v- HM Senior Coroner for Birmingham and Solihull [2015] ewhc 2561 (Admin) l the Divisional Court rejected an application for judicial review of a Coroner’s narrative verdict. “Fairness in an inquest must be fashioned in an environment where there are no pleadings and in which those given leave to appear as interested persons do not have a case to put. The evidence at inquests often takes an unexpected turn and calls for a degree of flexibility in the procedure to be followed as a consequence. The rules of evidence applied in criminal and civil proceedings do not apply. Questions of fairness to those involved in inquest proceedings must be judged against all these essential features and also in the context that the statutory scheme prohibits a finding of criminal liability on the part of a named person, or of civil liability.”

THE CASE

The claimant was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon. In the narrative verdict following the deaths of three patients the coroner stated:-

“An historic failure to accurately record post-operative data for all patients resulted in a missed opportunity to identify potential problems at an earlier stage which may have resulted in [the deceased’s] operation being dealt with by a different surgeon.”

THE APPLICATION FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW

II. That part of the coroner’s conclusion flowed from evidence which had been admitted at the inquest in the teeth of opposition from the claimant. Mr Garnham QC, who appears before the court in these proceedings, but did not appear before the coroner, advanced three grounds in support of the contention that the sentence should be removed by quashing it from each of the narrative conclusions.

i) It was unfair to rely upon...

Image cc en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coroners_Court_Entrance.jpg

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