A campaigning group of media lawyers have helped a freelance journalist overturn a coroner’s decision to withold the outcome of a ‘secret’ inquest.

As previously reported on HoldtheFrontPage, the senior coroner for Buckinghamshire had refused to reveal the verdict in an ‘inquest in writing’ into the death of 38-year-old electrician Graham Whelan, arguing that there was no public interest in the case.

Freelance journalist and media law lecturer Charlie Moloney, pictured, took up the case, fearing it could set a precedent that other inquests could be concluded in private.

Now with the help of the Media Lawyers Association he has forced the coroner, Crispin Butler, to back down after threatening to take the case to a judicial review.

Mr Whelan died on 22 April last year in Wendover, Bucks.  In October, Mr Butler decided to hold the inquest ‘in writing’, under a new power introduced in 2022 which allows coroners to conclude cases without a public hearing.

Charlie applied to the coroner for the record of inquest and ruling in Mr Whelan’s case, but the coroner refused, stating: ‘I believe this is required in order to protect the family from any glare of publicity’.

In a formal three-page ruling, Butler wrote: “I maintain that there is no wider public health benefit, or public learning or safety outcome to be gleaned from the specific circumstances of the death of Mr Whelan.

“In contrast, the sensitivity of the circumstances are such that the only likely outcome from publicity is one of damage to the wellbeing of the remaining family.”

Charlie argued that the decision to withold the outcome of an inquest was not lawful and obtained assistance from the Media Lawyers Association – an association of in-house media lawyers at national, regional and local news media organisations across the UK.

It then arranged for media barrister Guy Vassall-Adams KC to prepare a pre-action letter, threatening judicial review of Butler’s decision.

The letter stated: “The Record of Inquest is the formal public record of the outcome of an inquest setting out the coroner’s conclusions as to the key matters in relation to which the coroner has a statutory duty to make findings.

“There is a strong public interest in such documents being made available to the public and to the media under the open justice principle because it enables the public to understand the findings that Coroners have made and the circumstances in which people have died.

“The Senior Coroner’s Ruling proceeded from the premise that there is a lower public interest in the media getting access to a Record of Inquest after an inquest in writing than there would have been following an inquest heard in open court. The opposite is the case.

“It is precisely because so little public information becomes available where there is an inquest in writing that the right of access to the bare minimum of the Record of Inquest assumes such importance.”

Mr Butler has now provided the record of inquest and ruling into Mr Whelan’s death, which showed he had died from compression of the neck by a ligature.

The coroner ruled his death was a result of misadventure because there was no evidence that he intended to die.

Charlie has also written a piece for the Bucks Free Press about the case.

He wrote: “The purpose of journalists reporting on inquests is to make sure the public understands the reasons why someone has died; to make sure deaths are not kept secret; to draw attention to circumstances which may lead to more deaths or injuries and to prevent this from happening; and to clear up any rumours or suspicion about the death.

“Maybe the coroner is right that this county is better off not knowing about how one of its residents died. Perhaps we should just take his word for it. On the other hand, who is he to make that decision?

“Surely that is a matter for us, the taxpaying public who funds the coroner’s service, to decide. “