R v Bedfordshire Coroner, ex p Local Sunday Newspapers Ltd
Queen's Bench Division
Crown Office List
Burton J.
28 and 29 October 1999
A man was shot and killed by armed police officers in February 1998. In March 1998 the coroner received from the investigating officer (from a different force) a request that the anonymity of the officers involved be preserved at the inquest. The coroner provisionally directed that it should be, but reviewed the matter at a preliminary hearing on 28 July 1998. After hearing argument he confirmed his direction. No criminal or civil proceedings were ever brought in respect of the death.
In a letter of 19 November 1998 (not produced until the hearing of the application) solicitors acting for the officers concerned informed the coroner of an earlier incident involving the officer who had fired the shot (officer "B"), which made him concerned for his and his family's safety. At the commencement of the inquest the coroner at the request of solicitors for the deceased's family again reviewed his decision, but confirmed it. In his written reasons for so doing, he referred (inter alia) to the existence of violent criminals in the locality and the fact that B was a member of the force's Armed Response Team. He referred also to his own 'local knowlwdge and experience', but did not refer to the letter of 19 November. After a four day hearing, the jury concluded that the death had been a lawful killing.
No challenge was ever brought in respect of the conclusion of the inquest. But the applicant, which published a local newspaper, after some delay issued proceedings for judicial review, seeking certiorari to quash the anonymity decision, and a declaration that the coroner's decision had been unlawful. Because of the significant delay, Jowitt J., on the hearing for permission to move for judicial review on 26 April 1999, adjourned that application to the hearing of the substantive application, which now came on before Burton J. At the hearing, the applicant informed the court that it was now dropping the claim for certiorari, and persisting only with the claim for a declaration. In these circumstances the judge did not investigate the question of delay.
The only question for the court was the lawfulness of the coroner's decision to give the officers anonymity at the inquest. During the hearing the coroner supplied a further statement to the court supplementing his reasons by referring to the letter of 19 November 1998 and the earlier incident involving officer B. It was not disputed that, if the coroner was entitled to make the order in respect of officer B, he was entitled to do so in respect of officers A, C and D, in order to protect B's identity.
Philippa Kaufmann for the applicant
Paul Kilcoyne (James Bell on 29 October) for the
coroner
John Beggs for the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire
Michael Wood QC for police officers A, B, C, and D
Held:
(1) The fundamental principle at stake was that of open justice, and any departure from that must be a stringently regulated exception: see Attorney General v. Leveller Magazine [1979] A.C. 440 at 450D and R. v. Legal Aid Board, ex parte Kaim Todner [1998] 3 All E.R. 541 at 549e.
(2) Once a reason for anonymity has been established on an objective basis, a balancing act must be carried out; the factors involved included:
(a)
whether the effect is a secret hearing (in whole or part), non-reporting
of evidence, or withholding names (and in that
case whether of participants,
victims, witnesses or persons referred to in the evidence);
(b) the
nature of the hearing, there being less need to know a witness'
identity in an inquest, especially where the
coroner is aware of
it.
(3) A wholly irrational fear by the witness could not be sufficient, though it could be taken into account in some circumstances (e.g. an informer), but this would not apply to a police officer.
(4) The mere fact that the witness was a police officer would not normally be sufficient, though there might be circumstances where it could be (e.g. an officer playing a covert role in an undercover operation).
(5) The fear of the officer had to be for personal or family safety; in this connection the coroner had been entitled to take into account the material relating to the previous incident concerning officer B.
(6) The coroner had also been entitled to take into account B's membership of the Armed Response Group as a specialist group, giving rise to a special need for care in relation to him.
(7) Those two matters (i.e. (5) and (6)) taken together enabled the coroner to say that ther was sufficient ground to make the order, and then to carry out the balancing exercise.
(8) In that exercise, the facts that only the names of the witnesses sought was to be excluded, and that it was a coroner's inquest rather than a criminal trial, meant that the need for anonymity outweighed that for open justice.
(9) The coroner had applied the correct test, and the application was dismissed.
Wood QC and Beggs applied for their costs, resisted by Kaufmann. Bell (for Kilcoyne) made no application. After hearing argument, during which he observed that the two police parties could not have two sets of costs, the judge ordered that the applicant pay £4000 towards Wood's costs and £2000 towards Beggs' (both only a proportion of the total claimed).
There was no application for permission to appeal.
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Last modified: Monday, 09-Aug-2004 08:53:14 BST by: Malcolm Bishop