Author: Bridget Dolan QC

HM Senior Coroner Sarah Ormond-Walshe v Sherren [2024] EWHC 2332. Judgment (here) 30 July 2024 Language matters, particularly in public life.  It is now well accepted that no coroner or inquest lawyer should ever say (or invite a jury to find) that someone has ‘committed suicide’.   That archaic term connoting criminal conduct not only carries […]

Read More… from Language matters: Making reference to a “suicide note” is not appropriate

Senior Coroner for Northamptonshire v Lovell and Teague [2024] EWHC 2331 (Admin) 30 July 2024. Judgment here It is rare for the High Court to refuse an application by a Senior Coroner to overturn their own inquest. However in this case the judges were not persuaded that it was either necessary or desirable to make the […]

Read More… from A fresh Inquest is neither necessary nor desirable to correct a minor inaccuracy regarding a non-causative matter

R (Carr & Glaister) v HM Assistant Coroner for North Wales (East & Central)  [2024] EWHC 1983 (Admin). 30 July 2024. (decision here). As Coroners are slipping on their flip flops and slapping on the suncream, they can go off on holiday happy in the knowledge that it has again been formally stated by the […]

Read More… from Coroners are judically independent office holders

University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust v The Mother of G [2024] EWHC 1288 (Fam) Generally coroners will not be involved in a case until the fact of death is clear (advance consultation in organ donation cases perhaps being the notable exception). But for those rare times when there may be a dispute about […]

Read More… from Defining and declaring death