Author: Imogen Hildred

Posts by Imogen Hildred

Police are entitled to rely on an ‘expert’ Coroner

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R (Przybys) v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police [2026] EWHC 1159 (Admin) 15 May 2026 (judgment here) This Administrative Court decision reviews the interrelationship between police investigations, regulatory processes and coronial decision-making.  Although the Senior Coroner for Manchester City was not a party to these proceedings, the court identified the coroner’s earlier assessment of this […]

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The ‘Shipsey fix’: putting things right the ‘easy’ way?

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Senior Coroner for Northumberland v Assistant Coroner for Northumberland [2026] EWHC (Admin) (extempore ruling) 17 June 2026. Things can go wrong in inquests.  Slip ups and misspeaks are just part of being human. Yet, frustratingly for a coroner, if they want to do the right thing and quickly correct their own innocent mis-statement they will not […]

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Neutral really does mean neutral: you can’t be partisan and hope to get away with costs

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R (O’Brien) v HM Assistant Coroner for Sefton, Knowsley and St Helens [2026] EWCA Civ 605 (19 May 2026) Costs judgment here. As readers of this blog should already know ‘neutral means neutral’ if you are a Coroner responding to a Judicial Review claim (and if you didn’t know that, see our 2018 blog following […]

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Complex medical evidence may well be helped by a list of issues (and a towel)

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R (Olabode) v HM Area Coroner for Manchester City & Manchester University NHSF Trust (2026) EWHC 810,  2 April 2026, judgment here. Coroners and inquest practitioners seeing this 31 page judgment land on a Maundy Thursday need not worry that they might now have a lot of reading to interrupt their Easter break.  Despite the […]

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Death after asbestos exposure: Correlation is not causation (again)

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HM Area Coroner for Cumbria v Leech [2023] EWHC 3476 (Admin) In the wake of the Wandsworth decision (see our earlier blog post here) in which the High Court emphasised how correlation is not causation when dealing with a death from mesothelioma, those who read the above judgment from a s.13 application will be forgiven […]

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