INQUESTS & PUBLIC INQUIRIES: An Introduction

INQUESTS AND PUBLIC INQUIRIES: An Introduction 

By QEB Hollis Whiteman’s Inquests, Inquiries and Public Law Team

Inquests and inquiries are the mechanisms by which the public are able to hold private organisations, individuals and public bodies accountable when things go wrong. At their heart is the principle that public examination into the circumstances of tragedy can crack open facades and force transparency even where it is unwanted. As long as there is faith in the justice system, then calls for explanations and demands to hold people to account will not cease. This area of law continues to involve some of the most interesting work at the Bar.

Overview 2021–22 

Inquests 

2021 saw a five per cent fall in the number of deaths in England and Wales and the fewest deaths registered with coroners since 1995. Yet 32,800 inquests were opened in 2021, a two per cent rise from 2020, and the number of jury inquests more than doubled, from 189 to 428 in one year. These types of inquest are often longer and more complex hearings, engaging Article 2, the right to life, and the associated breadth of legal issues. The increase in Article 2 inquests may be in part a consequence of the overflow of cases which were unable to begin during COVID lockdowns, although this is unlikely to be the full picture. The continued rise of deaths in state custody, from 562 in 2020 to 580 this year provides another, though smaller part of the picture.

Although rates of COVID are declining, the pandemic continues to pose challenges not only to the logistics of the inquest process, but also the issues the inquest must address. July’s updated Guidance on the COVID-19 Pandemic confirms that coroners will need to carefully consider whether deaths from COVID-19 in prisons amount to deaths from natural causes particularly where there may be issues associated with care. Deaths from COVID-19 as a result of exposure in the workplace remain very much within the scope of coroners where there is reason to suspect ‘that any culpable human failure contributed to death’, placing a wide range of COVID-19 deaths within the potential remit of a coroner’s investigation.

Inquests remain a fluid but important tool for those seeking to hold individuals and organisations to account publicly. Coroner Andrew Walker KC this month ordered senior executives at Meta – the owner of Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook – and at Pinterest to attend in person the inquest into 14-year-old Molly Russell’s death of suspected suicide in 2017 as part of its consideration of the role which harmful social media content played in her death. The Shoreham Airshow inquest is only now being heard, seven years after the tragedy and following criminal proceedings in 2019, and a not guilty verdict, against the aircraft’s pilot. Following a High Court ruling, it will not be able to re-open matters already subject to investigation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch investigation. In May 2021, some 50 years after their deaths, the second inquest into the deaths of ten people in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast found at least nine of them had been shot by the British Army and that all ten were ‘entirely innocent of any wrongdoing on the day in question’. Described by then Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Louise Haigh as a ‘profound failure of justice’, the families’ long battle for a proper investigation into their loved-ones’ deaths signals the great imperfections of the inquisitorial system but also its significance, demonstrated by families’ determination for answers.

Public inquiries 

The number of active public inquiries and the breadth of their review continues to grow. The Undercover Police and Child Sex Abuse inquiries continue to hear evidence; the Manchester Arena Inquiry is expected to publish Volume Two of its final report this year. The final report from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry is anticipated in 2023. The Whyte Review into allegations of abuse within gymnastics was published in June 2022, a rare example of a non-statutory inquiry launched and completed within two years.

Following the publication of the Infected Blood Inquiry’s interim report, the Government committed to paying interim compensation to some of those affected by the scandal by the end of October 2022. Lady Elish Angiolini, chair of the inquiry into the murder of Sarah Everard, has not finalised part one of her report due to ongoing criminal and misconduct proceedings but work continues in preparation for part two of the inquiry. In Northern Ireland the Muckamore Abbey Hospital Inquiry examines the abuse of patients at the hospital between 1999 and 2021, and the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is tasked with creating a ‘national public record’ of abuse of children in care between 2014 and any period which is in the living memory of an abused person.

Perhaps the most far-reaching statutory inquiry was announced this year. The UK COVID-19 Inquiry was formally set up on 28 June 2022. Chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Hallett DBE the COVID Inquiry will consider and report on the preparations for and the response to the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The inquiry’s terms of reference cover three broad areas: the public health response; the health and care sector response; and the economic response to the pandemic and its impact. After a consultation period as to the terms of reference, the Chair recommended the terms of reference were amended to include consideration of the unequal impact of the pandemic across all sections of the community, including race, disability, the elderly, children in care and people living in poverty. Hearings are expected to start in early 2023.

Looking ahead 

The balance between the length of time inquests and inquiries can take and the breadth of their scope continues to be challenging. Last year, the Home Secretary defended the decision to launch a non-statutory inquiry into Sarah Everard’s death as ensuring a streamlined and faster process. Critics argued that the teeth of the inquiry were being sacrificed for a quick outcome.

In summer of 2021 the government converted the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry from a non-statutory inquiry to a statutory one in view of the Court of Appeal’s decision to quash the convictions of 39 subpostmasters and subpostmistresses. The Business Secretary noted the inquiry’s need for greater powers as the terms of reference expanded to include an in-depth analysis of the events that led to the Horizon dispute.

The Ballymurphy Inquest demonstrates how rushed or insufficiently robust investigations are often the bedrock of delayed justice. The Justice Select Committee’s 2021 report on coroner services found that it had improved since the implementation of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, but there is still work to be done. ‘Bereaved people are not yet sufficiently at its heart’, the report states, and it predicts that as long as local authorities are tasked with the funding of the service its quality will be insufficient, finding that: ‘a national Coroner Service is the only way bereaved people can be provided with consistent services on an acceptable standard’. At the same time Parliament has taken tentative steps towards greater equality of arms at inquests. In December 2021, it was announced that means testing of families seeking representation in Article 2 inquests would be removed and in March 2022, the House of Lords debated the Judicial Review and Courts Bill and Parliamentarians voted in favour of an amendment which provides publicly funded legal representation for bereaved people at inquests, an encouraging development for improving bereaved families’ prospects of state funded legal representation.