Coroners

Duty to hold inquest unnatural death inadequate treatment by hospitalR (Touche) v Inner London North Coroner: CA (Lords Justices Simon Brown, Robert Walker and Keene): 21 March 2001The applicants wife, after giving birth by Caesarean section, died as a result of the hospitals failure adequately to monitor her blood pressure.

The coroner refused to hold an inquest into the death on the ground that the death was not unnatural within the meaning of section 8(1)(a) of the Coroners Act 1988.

The Queens Bench Divisional Court granted the applicant judicial review of the coroners decision.

The coroner appealed.Ian Burnett QC and Ben Collins (instructed by Hempsons, Manchester) for the coroner.

Philip Havers QC and Simon Taylor (instructed by Alexander Harris) for the applicant.Held, dismissing the appeal, that upon the material available to the coroner, he could not properly decide otherwise than that there was reasonable cause to suspect that the deceaseds death was at least contributed to by neglect and, thus, was unnatural for the purposes of section 8(1)(a); that, however, the wider point which lay at the heart of the appeal was whether the Divisional Court was right to hold that whenever a death took place in hospital and a failure to provide routine treatment was a cause of the death that death was unnatural; that since such deaths prompted understandable public concern it was the function of the coroner to carry out an appropriate investigation to allay such concern; and that, accordingly, the judgment below should be upheld.

(WLR)