A regional daily has protested over a coroner’s handling of an inquest at which he refused to name the deceased person.
The Oxford Mail was astonished to hear Oxfordshire coroner Darren Salter refuse to reveal the name of a dead man into whom he conducted an inquest on Wednesday.
Despite protests from the newspaper, the coroner stuck to his decision saying the dead man had an “unusual surname” and that he was worried about the safety of children who were related to him.
After discovering the man’s identity by other means, the newspaper decided to ignore the ruling and published his name in yesterday’s print edition, although it stopped short from naming him in its online version of the story.
Now the Newsquest-owned title has written a formal letter of protest to the coroner claiming he had no legal powers to make such a ruling.
Section 11 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 states that inquests should be held in public unless for reasons of national security, while Section 10 states that inquests are held in order to determine the name of the deceased person and how they died.
Mail assistant editor Jason Collie told HTFP: “It’s clear from the Act that the whole point of an inquest is to determine who has died and how they died. If you don’t say who has died it frustrates that whole principle.
“We cannot allow this to stand as a precedent. It opens up the door to potential secrecy in the future.”
In its report on the proceedings, the Mail said Mr Salter would only name the man as Christopher H.
Mr Salter told the hearing: “He has a highly unusual surname and it is my decision not to make public the surname of the individual. He is not anyone well-known, just a normal person, but we have an unusual surname.”
The coroner recorded a verdict of a drug and drink-related death.
Mail editor Simon O’Neill tweeted afterwards: “I thought I’d seen it all. But then along came the coroner who refused to name a dead man.”
Rules governing the conduct of inquests were originally set out in the Coroners Rules 1984 which have now been incorporated into the 2009 Act.
Section 11 of the Act states: “Every inquest shall be held in public, provided that the coroner may direct that the public be excluded from an inquest or any part of an inquest if he considers that it would be in the interest of national security so to do.”
In addition Section 10 states: “The proceedings and evidence at an inquest shall be directed solely to ascertaining the following matters, namely (a) who the deceased was; (b) how, when and where the deceased came by his death; (c) the particulars for the time being required by the Registration Acts to be registered concerning the death.
“Neither the coroner nor the jury shall express any opinion on any other matters.”
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The coroner’s ruling is truly bizarre, but the Oxford Mail’s decision to identify the deceased in print, but not online, is almost as weird.
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Another bonkers judicial decision which seem to be becoming an everyday occurrence.
What’s just as bonkers though is the Oxford Mail’s decision to name him in print but not online. If you’re going to ignore a ruling at least do it properly and be consistent across your platforms.
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Welcome to my world. We’ve had this problem in Essex for a while and official lines of complaint just get us nowhere.
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This is unbelievable. Is there some higher body to whom this coroner can be referred for training and / or disciplinary action? If they don’t understand the principle behind the whole coroner’s system, surely they should be spoken to / removed.
Same goes for magistrates slapping S39s on dead children. Scary when the judiciary itself can not be trusted to uphold the law.
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I should be interested to read the opinion of HTFP’s legal expert on this issue and what can be done about coroners hell bent on censoring inquests. Could make an interesting column. There have been several incidents of strange “rulings” by coroners operating outside their powers and seemingly getting away with it.
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Was his surname Hitler or Hirohito? Other suggestions please?
Now he’s also not been named on this HTFP website. Odd too….
As others have said, it’s soppy that the Oxford Mail named him in print but not online.
They’re barmy……and let journalism down a little after first protesting on a good justified principle.
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The Essex coroner regularly starts inquests before the listed time, or holds inquests which have not been listed, and her officers frequently refuse to identify deceased persons to the legal standard demanded by the chief coroner, namely their name, age and address. They often claim they cannot release this information due to the Data Protection Act, or claim they are only allowed to do so if the family gives permission. The whole service is a law unto itself and constant complaints to the coroner and to the ombudsman are ignored.
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The fact that the Oxford Mail declined to name the deceased online only shows that they don’t have much confidence in their online platform. But I struggle to see what, exactly, they were frightened of ? Could the unusual name be ‘trolled’ unpleasantly in some way ? If so, what does it matter ? The deceased is dead.
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@ Capt Starlight
My understanding is that the paper took the view that the man should be named in print because of the principle of the public record but decided that publishing it online would be flying in the face of the concerns the coroner had raised, even though it was their view that the coroner was wrong in law.
The paper having taken the decision not to publish online, I did not feel it was our place as HTFP to publish the name, especially when it has no direct bearing on our reporting of the story.
Oh and by the way his name is not Hitler.
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I second the complaints about Essex coroner. I used to work in that county and it was a nightmare.
I recall one individual who treated it like their own private fiefdom. They saw fit to impose their own sense of morality upon proceedings rather than be bound by law and due process.
There was an obnoxiously self-righteous aspect to it as well – they seemed to feel it was their duty to protect all these poor families from the nasty,evil press, and damned be the consequences.
On one occasion, as soon as they became aware that I was present, they raced through the entire proceedings in about three minutes.
They said something along the lines of: “the information on the circumstances surrounding Mr X’s death is here in this file – but I’m sure the family have no need to hear it all again” then moved straight to the verdict and closed the proceedings.
Disappointed to hear it’s still going on.
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The best way to challenge these bonkers decisions is to seek judicial review. I know there would be cost implications for a newspaper, but a High Court judge would never uphold such a clearly unlawful decision and it would give a clear precedent to coroners across the country.
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It’s a real shame to hear that fellow journos are having trouble like this with coroners.
We have superb coroners in Lincolnshire and I’ve never come across any problems reporting on inquests they preside over.
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So what was his name then?
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