Parkin v HM Asst Coroner Inner London (East), and London Borough of Havering and North East London NHS Foundation Trust (interested parties) [2024] EWHC 744 (Admin)

In the context of Article 2, the State’s obligation to take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of citizens is a constantly evolving jurisprudence. The categories of cases giving rise to the duty are not specifically defined and can never be regarded as closed.

However, as the Court has underlined many times, Article 2 cannot be interpreted as guaranteeing to every citizen an absolute level of security in any activity in which the right to life may be at stake, particularly when the person concerned bears a degree of responsibility for the events, having exposed himself or herself to danger.^[1]  

In this latest judicial review decision, the High Court has drawn a line in the sand by clarifying  that even where a public body is aware of a real and immediate risk to a person’s life and health and social care professionals have drawn up care plans  to ameliorate that risk, the Art.2 duty may still not arise.  Helping and supporting an individual, even in the discharge of a public body’s legal duties, does not routinely give rise to the operational Art 2 duty to protect life.   More is required than merely offering services to the person that might assist in ameliorating a known risk of death.

The key to when the Art 2 duty will arise remains the Rabone indicia which need to be considered in the specific factual context of the case.

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 for scratching their heads wondering when,  if ever, a death from lung disease where there was a clear work history of asbestos exposure alongside asbestos fibres being found in the lungs at autopsy, might be safely considered to be a death from ‘industrial disease’.

A 2021 study from the University of Surrey School of Law looking at gender and seniority of counsel before the UK’s highest court^[1] (here) has shown that women are under-represented as leading advocates, especially in major civil and Business and Property Courts litigation before the Supreme Court.   Whilst there are some reassuring findings within the study, particularly the overall positive trend in increasing representation by female counsel, there remain stark variations between areas of law.

Seemingly prompted by that study, Dame Sue Carr, the first ever Lady Chief Justice of England & Wales has, within a month of being sworn in, published guidance aimed at redressing the gender balance by providing junior counsel in general, and female junior counsel in particular, better opportunities to advance oral argument in courts and tribunals.  In recognition of the importance for career development of being given the opportunity to present legal arguments to the court, the guidance is cross-jurisdictional, being co-authored by the President of every significant judicial division, including the Senior President of Tribunals.

The guidance (here) is now three months old, although, anecdotally, it seems many Coroners are not yet aware of its content. Whilst coroners don’t (yet) have the status of judges so as to fall under the Lady Chief Justice’s authority, it is nevertheless guidance from the highest judicial levels aimed at all judges and tribunal chairs, and so something of which all Coroners should want to be aware.

Henry Gargan’s and Edward Butler’s Application [2023] NIKB 103

R (Bryan) v HM Assistant Coroner for Buckinghamshire [2024] EWHC (Admin) 26, 12 January 2024

This most tragic of cases concerned the loss of two precious and irreplaceable lives when Ms Redmond put herself in the path of a train whilst holding her three year old daughter.

The inevitable conclusion of suicide in Ms Redmond’s inquest was not contested.  But the Coroner did not agree with the position of the Claimant (supported by the paternal side of the child’s family) that the child had been unlawfully killed by her mother.  In a long and detailed narrative conclusion regarding the child’s death the Coroner addressed her mother’s state of mind and determined that this was not an unlawful killing because Ms Redmond had probably been ‘insane’ when she had jumped.

The Claimant challenged both the form and substance of the Coroner’s conclusion, arguing that the Coroner’s finding had impermissibly reversed the presumption of sanity and, in its place, substituted a presumption of insanity.  The challenge failed on all grounds, however, as the Court held that not only was the Coroner entitled to make this finding on the evidence but, given the inquisitorial nature of an inquest, it would be inappropriate to attempt to transpose directly the concepts of a presumption of sanity and the burden of proof as they apply in the context of criminal proceedings to the very different context of inquisitorial coronial proceedings.