swarb.co.uk - law index
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Coroners - From: 1992 To: 1992
This page lists 3 cases, and was prepared on 20 May 2019.
ÂRegina v HM Attorney-General for Northern Ireland and Another Ex Parte Devine (1992) NI 74
1992
CANI
Hutton LJ
Northern Ireland, Coroners
An inquest was held into three deaths thought to be at the hands of British soldiers. The coroner had admitted written evidence from statements taken by British officers on the basis that the makers of the statements were not compellable as witnesses. Held: Judicial review of the coroner's decision was refused.
Hutton LJ said: "in Nash's case the Court of Appeal was strongly influenced by the consideration that at that time a highway authority was not responsible for nonfeasance. Therefore the court considered that it was not the intention of Parliament to make a highway authority liable for an accident where that highway authority was not guilty of misfeasance but only of nonfeasance. Accordingly the court interpreted the word liabilities in such a way as not to make the rural district council responsible in damages for a danger which it did not itself create."
and "We accept counsel's submissions that for the two reasons which he advanced the statements of soldiers A, B and C do not come within the ambit of Rule 17. But we reject his other submission that Rule 17 applies to all documentary evidence and that as the statements do not fall within it the rule prohibits their admission in evidence. We consider that Rule 17 only applies to the type of document described in paragraph (1) viz a document where 'a coroner considers that the attendance as a witness by the maker of the document is unnecessary' . . In other words the document appears to the coroner to be formal and uncontroversial. The statements of A, B and C are clearly not such documents and therefore Rule 17 does not apply to them. Accordingly, Rule 17 does not abrogate the ordinary rule that it was open to the coroner to admit the statements, notwithstanding that they were hearsay."
Coroners (Practice and Procedure) Rules (NI) 1980 17
1 Cites
1 Citers
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 Regina v HM Attorney-General for Northern Ireland and Another Ex Parte Devine, Same Ex Parte Breslin; HL 1-Apr-1992 - Gazette, 01 April 1992; [1992] 1 WLR 262
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Regina v Poplar Coroner ex parte Thomas Gazette, 10 June 1992; [1993] QB 610; [1993] 2 ALL ER 381; [1993] 2 WLR 547; Times, 23 December 1992; Independent, 20 January 1992; (1993) 157 JP 506; [1993] COD 178; (1993) 157 JPN 349
15 Dec 1992
CA
Simon Brown LJ, Dillon LJ, Farquharson LJ
Coroners
The deceased, aged 17, had had a severe asthma attack. The ambulance was delayed and she was taken to the hospital, but died on the way there despite assistance from police officers and latterly the ambulance staff. Evidence suggested that she might have survived if she had been got to the hospital earlier, but the cause of death was the asthma attack. The family challenged the failure to hold an inquest. The divisional court held the death may have been unnatural, and that the public interest required an inquest. Held: The coroner did not have a discretion about holding an inquest only because of the public interest. His duty was set out in the Act. He was wrong to preclude himself from investigating a death from lack of care. It was important to have consistency in decisions about whether to hold inquests. The word 'unnatural' in the section should be given its ordinary meaning and that the question of natural or unnatural depended on the cause of death and that this was essentially a practical question of fact. The circumstances surrounding the death may turn what might otherwise be a natural death into an unnatural one. Simon Brown LJ: "I agree that unnatural is an ordinary word of the English language and that there is nothing to suggest that in S8(1) of the Coroners Act 1988 it is being used in any unusual sense. That, however, is not to say that whether or not a particular death is properly to be regarded as unnatural is a pure question of fact. On the contrary it seems to me that some guidance at least can and should be given as a matter of law by the Courts to Coroners so that they may focus their attention upon the real considerations material to the decision and, one hopes, thereby achieve an essential measure of consistency in their approach to the section." and "Merely, however, because the Coroner's inquest may nowadays may be though lacking any very clear or cogent role is no sufficient reason for adopting too narrow an approach to S.8. I repeat, it seems to me necessary to recognise that cases may well arise in which human fault can and properly should be found to turn what would otherwise be a natural death into an unnatural one, and into which, therefore, an inquest should be held." Dillon LJ: `… it is not the function of a coroner's inquest to provide a forum for attempts to gather evidence for pending or future criminal or civil proceedings.'
Coroners Act 1988 88(1)
1 Citers
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