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R (HURST) v NORTH LONDON CORONER, 4 July 2003, DC
[This is an unofficial summary of this case]
Over a number of years R, a local authority tenant, behaved in an antisocial and violent manner towards his neighbours and others. Complaints were made at various times to police and to the local authority, and R was prosecuted and convicted in relation to some of this behaviour. Eventually the local authority decided to bring proceedings to evict R from his home. R threatened to get even with anyone who gave evidence against him. The deceased was one of those witnesses. Subsequently the deceased and R were involved in an incident and the deceased was stabbed to death by R, who was arrested and thereafter convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.
The death occurred before the commencement of the Human Rights Act 1988. The inquest into the death had been adjourned compulsorily under s 16 of the Coroners Act 1988. After the trial was over, and the Human Rights Act was in force, the family called on the coroner to resume the inquest under s 16(3). The coroner refused to do so, asserting that in all the circumstances (including the fact that a full criminal trial had taken place), there was no sufficient reason to do so.
The family sought a judicial review of the coroner's decision to refuse to resume the inquest, on the basis that the evidence before the coroner disclosed an arguable breach by the local authority and the police of the deceased's right to life under ECHR Article 2, and this was sufficient cause to resume the inquest..
The court held, after a detailed review of the evidence, that in the circumstances the coroner was wrong to have concluded that there was no arguable breach of art 2 by the police and local authority in failing to protect the deceased. Hence the coroner should have resumed, his decision would be quashed and (the coroner not objecting) an order made that the inquest should be resumed. The coroner was ordered to pay the costs, and, although the coroner was very happy to hear the case, the family were not, and so the court directed that a different coroner should hear the resumed inquest.
Amongst other interesting legal features of this case are
(1) that ECHR art 2 applied to this case because, although the death occurred before the coming into force of the HRA, the coroner's impugned decision not to resume was taken afterwards (Silber J, in R (Khan) v Secretary of State for Health, 17 June 2001, not followed);
(2) that the art 2 investigation duty was held not to have been satisfied by (in particular) the criminal proceedings, the police investigation leading to those proceedings, or the civil proceedings currently on foot against both the police and the local authority (again, compare R (Khan) v Secretary of State for Health); and
(3) that the art 2 investigation was expected to cover the responsibility of the police and the local authority for the death, going back years in time to cover the history of violence etc on the part of the killer towards those living around him.
Appearances:
Keir Starmer QC and Daniel Friedman for the claimant, Mrs C Hurst
Alison Hewitt for the defendant coroner
Jason Beer for the Metropolitan Police
Ranjit Bhose for the London Borough of Barnet
For the transcript of the judgment, click here.
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Last modified: Monday, 09-Aug-2004 08:53:13 BST by: Malcolm Bishop