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Prof. Yaffle,

1) There is no religious reason for most Christians denomination to practice same day burials. Likewise, atheists do not have a need, as a result of their atheistic beliefs, to conduct urgent burials.

You cannot compare in law the generalised frustration (you say it amounts to distress. I disagree) with bureaucratic delay with the acute stress caused by the state's interference with religious practice. Religion is protected by the ECHR precisely in recognition of its centrality and importance to the life of those who follow its creed.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the cab rank rule was motivated by animus towards the religious, particularly given that it was accompanied by the cancellation of a protocol to allow Jews to stand watch over the body in accordance with tradition ("shemira"), a protocol which was reinstated in an attempt to forestall litigation; and given the history of this coroner in respect of previous litigation concerning non invasive post mortems paid for by the Jewish community. These cost the coroner nothing, and were withdrawn in an apparent fit of pique to punish the community for what the coroner regarded as pushy, bullying conduct. It is not for the coroner to use her custodianship over bodies to punish those she regards as bullies.

2) I do not accept your premise that the non urgent group are in any way materially disadvantaged by expedited burials for the religious. We are literally talking about five minutes work twice a day in the worst case scenario. I don't believe that the cumulative impact of this would be measurable in outcomes for the non urgent group, given the amount of noise in the system (for example, whether the clerk is feeling productive while suffering from a cold; the coroner checking emails on the train rather than at intervals during an inquiry; whether each worker was 100% occupied or whether there was work on the basis of normal productivity for 2.7 workers, and of necessity the coroner employed 3). I do not accept your premise that this is a zero sum game.

3) Even were this a zero sum game, by definition, the self identifying non urgent group of service users is not impacted by the urgency of the self identifying urgent group provided that the latter do not create a delay discomfiting even to the urgent group.

4) Everyone should receive a compassionate and helpful service, and, if the length of time that it is taking for the non urgent group to be released is causing distress, at the moment the law gives them no redress, coroners being free to run their office as they see fit free from the pressures of either consumer demand or democratic accountability to local service users. That cannot be right.