What do coroners do?
Coroners are independent judicial officers whose appointment and duties are regulated by law: see for example the Home Office Guide, Appointment of Coroners. They inquire into certain kinds of death set out in the Coroners Act 1988, s 8(1), namely those which the coroner has reasonable cause to suspect (a) are violent or unnatural, (b) are sudden, of unknown cause, or (c) occur in prison. The death may result (for example) from a domestic accident, an incident at work, a a homicide or a suicide, or even from a major disaster. For a particular coroner to have jurisdiction, it does not matter where the death occurred (even outside the UK). It matters where the body now is. The Home Office Research Development Statistics Section maintains statistics of the number of deaths reported to coroners.
The inquiry may involve a post-mortem examination (or "autopsy"). Coroners hold public hearings in open court (sometimes with a jury) when evidence concerning the deaths is heard. These inquiries and hearings are outlined in two Home Office guides, The Work of the Coroner, and (more recently) When Sudden Death Occurs, in a Home Office Research Study (No 181), Coroner Service Survey, and in an on-line guide produced by Liberty. They are also described in various textbooks. The scope of these inquest hearings, and of the verdicts which result from them, is however quite narrow.
Coroners must be notified if a dead body is to be removed from England and Wales. They may also be asked for consent to removal of organs for transplant into other persons. In England and Wales they also inquire into treasure (formerly treasure trove). In rare circumstances they substitute for the sheriff (executive officer of the High Court), ie when the sheriff has a conflict of interest in executing a judgment, and cannot act. But when this happens the substitution is purely nominal, and the sheriff's officers, including the under-sheriff, continue as normal, but on this occasion acting in the name of the coroner.
In the first instance coroners act largely through their officers, who may in some cases be serving or retired police officers. Bereaved families will normally deal with the coroner's officer in relation to the formalities of the inquiry and the registration of the death. The Report of the Coroners' Officers' Working Party is available on the Home Office website.
For those interested in becoming a coroner, there is a short note on this on
the Coroners' Society website.
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Last modified: Monday, 09-Aug-2004 08:53:22 BST by: Malcolm Bishop