2020

Cases Reported

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust v Midrar Namiq & Others [2020] EWHC 180 (Fam)	1
Issue: Whether the legal definition of death was brain stem death; whether best interests were relevant when deciding whether it was lawful to withdraw mechanical ventilation from a person who was legally dead.

Re M (Declaration of Death of Child) [2020] EWCA Civ 164	9
Issue: Whether the legal definition of death was brain stem death; whether best interests were relevant when deciding whether it was lawful to withdraw mechanical ventilation from a person who was legally dead; the appropriate form of declaration in such cases; and whether a reporting restrictions order preventing identification of a class of professionals was lawful.

R (Lewis) v Senior Coroner for North West Kent [2020] EWHC 471 (Admin)	23
Issue: Whether a fresh inquest should be ordered where the Coroner had decided not to leave a conclusion including neglect to the jury and had given no reasons for declining to do so.

Goodenough v Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police [2020] EWHC 695 (QB)	28
Issue: Whether the use of fatal force by police officers could be justified and whether the post death investigation was compliant with Art 2 ECHR.

R (Carole Smith) v HM Assistant Coroner for North West Wales [2020] EWHC 781 (Admin)	39
Issue: Whether the Coroner had acted lawfully in not accepting expert evidence on causation, and in setting out admitted failings in her reasons but not in the formal record of inquest.

D, P and K v The Lord Chancellor [2020] EWHC 736 (Admin)	49
Issue: Whether costs should be awarded against the Lord Chancellor following the Claimant’s successful Judicial Review application.

Baysultanov v Russia ECtHR Committee, Appn 56120/13	55
Issue: Whether the use of lethal force by the police during a special operation, and the alleged failure by authorities to conduct an effective investigation, were substantive and procedural violations of Art 2 ECHR.

Schembri v Marshall [2020] EWCA Civ 358	66
Issue: Whether statistical evidence could be used to prove causation where a claimant was otherwise unable to prove the precise mechanism which would have led to a positive outcome.

Re Ketcher and Mitchell’s application for Judicial Review [2020] NICA 31	76
Issue: Whether Art 2 coronial proceedings constituted litigation for the purpose of a claim to litigation privilege from disclosure of expert evidence.

R (Maguire) v HM Senior Coroner for Blackpool & Fylde [2020] EWCA Civ 738	83
Issue: Whether Art 2 ECHR was engaged when a vulnerable person, subject to a DoLS authorisation in a care home, had died after a delayed admission to hospital.

Rushbrook v HM Coroner for West London [2020] EWHC 1612 (Admin)	99
Issue: Whether a fresh inquest should be directed pursuant to s13 Coroners Act 1988 due to insufficiency of inquiry and procedural irregularity.

R (Iroko) v HM Senior Coroner and HM Assistant Coroner for Inner London South [2020] EWHC 1753 (Admin)	102
Issue: Whether failings in the management of a patient’s resuscitation were individual or systemic such as to engage the Art 2 ECHR procedural obligation; whether failings in a patient’s care, including misdiagnosis amounted to neglect.

R (GS) (A Child) v HM Senior Coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon [2020] EWHC 2007 (Admin)	112
Issue: Whether the procedural obligation to conduct an Art 2 compliant investigation arose where the actions of foreign state agents may be responsible for a death; whether the prohibitions within s10(2) CJA 2009 from determining criminal liability by a named person or civil liability prevented investigation of matters relevant to criminal or civil liability.

R (EA, By Her Litigation Friend MA) & another v Chairman of the Manchester Arena Inquiry [2020] EWHC 2053 (Admin)	130
Issue: Whether the 14 day time limit for seeking judicial review under s38(1) Inquiries Act 2005 had expired, and if so should be extended to allow survivors of a fatal terrorist attack to challenge, on the basis of irrationality and breach of their procedural rights to an effective investigation under Arts 2 and 3 ECHR, a refusal to grant them core participant status in the public inquiry into the deaths.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service v Susan Ann Veevers [2020] EWHC 2550 (Comm)	143
Issue: Whether the costs of an inquest were ‘incidental to’ civil proceedings and so could be recovered in circumstances where liability to pay civil damages had been implicitly conceded but not formally admitted pre-inquest.

R (Skelton and Skelton) v Senior Coroner for West Sussex and (1) Chief Constable of Sussex Police and (2) Robert Trigg (interested parties) [2020] EWHC 2813 (Admin)	155
Issue: Whether, where there were allegations of investigative shortcomings by the police prior to a homicide, the coroner should conduct an inquest compliant with the procedural obligations under Art 2 ECHR; whether a collateral challenge to a homicide conviction was permissible when a fresh inquest had been ordered.

R (Maughan) v Oxfordshire Senior Coroner v Chief Coroner of England and Wales and another [2020] UKSC 46	175
Issue: Whether the standard of proof for the inquest conclusions of suicide and unlawful killing was the criminal or civil standard.

Re Inquest into the death of Michael Vaughan [2020] EWHC 3670 (Admin)	195
Issue: Whether it was either necessary or desirable that an inquest should be quashed and a fresh inquest ordered where a final letter written by the deceased had been omitted from the evidence put before the Coroner.

In the matter of Steponaviciene’s Application [2020] NICA 61	198
Issue: Whether the civil standard of proof should apply to an inquest conclusion of suicide.

R (Grice) v HM Senior Coroner for Brighton and Hove [2020] EWHC 3581 (Admin)	199
Issue: Whether, where there were credible allegations of breach by the police of their Art 2 ECHR operational duty to safeguard a life, the investigative obligation under Art 2 had been met by the criminal trial and the four subsequent investigations of police conduct.