Lee v Assistant Coroner for County Durham and Chief Constable of Durham [2022] High Court QBD (CO/4066/2021)
The tragic death of Dylan Lee is a distressing case. Dylan was only 19 years old when he took his own life by hanging himself at his family home. Before his death Dylan’s family were said to have been the victims of abuse and harassment by private individuals (primarily neighbours) as a result of their Romani Gypsy heritage. Sixteen crimes against his family had been, reported to police in the period before Dylan’s death.
Dylan’s mother felt strongly that the police had failed to treat the family’s reports with the seriousness that they deserved, failed to recognise the treatment as discriminatory, and failed to carry out adequate investigations. However, at Dylan’s inquest the Coroner ruled that the scope of the inquest would not include investigation of the alleged discriminatory treatment to which Dylan and his family were subjected, nor the alleged failure of the police to respond appropriately thereto
Dylan’s mother sought permission to bring judicial review proceedings challenging the conduct of this non-Article 2 inquest. Although not a binding authority, the comments of the Judge when refusing permission to bring the claim are illuminating.
The application was brought on the basis of both Article 2 and Article 8 ECHR. The Article 2 aspect was easily dispensed with: there was nothing in the evidence to suggest police (or indeed anyone) ought to have known Dylan was at risk of taking his own life, nor was there any evidence of any link between the alleged harassment and Dylan’s death. As for the Article 8 claim, the judge noted that even if the state does have an investigative duty under Article 8, it does not follow that that investigative duty falls upon a Coroner. It is no part of the function of an inquest to investigate an alleged breach of a person’s right to respect for private and family life.