Revisited: Applications for a fresh inquest

An erudite High Court judgment concerning a tragic and complex inquest provides lessons of law related to a failed judicial review claim and a subsequent challenge under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988 and the remedies available to the court.

The procedural history in Shipsey -v- HM Senior Coroner for Worcestershire is long and meandering commencing first in 2018 with a judicial review application to the Coroner’s conclusion of suicide in respect of Mr and Mrs Shipsey’s daughter’s, Beth, death from an overdose in 2017. They argued that the Coroner had acted irrationally and erred in law in reaching a conclusion of suicide and by way of relief, they sought amendments to the Record of Inquest to remove the phrases that referred to suicide and suicide intent. The judicial review permission was refused following new expert evidence.

Beth’s family subsequently initiated a section 13 application by seeking a fiat (permission) from the Attorney General in 2023 challenging the inquest finding of Beth having had suicidal ideation. In 2024, the Attorney General’s fiat was granted and subsequently the section 13 application to the High Court. 

But as to the issues relating to relief in this case, the NHS Trusts raised two issues:

• Whether it was necessary to order a fresh coronial investigation (the NHS Trust was concerned about potential difficulties with staff’s recall many years after their contact with Beth and about their welfare)
• Whether it is permissible to amend the Record of Inquest by quashing parts of it

The High Court agreed that it was not necessary to order a fresh coronial investigation and that it had the power under section 13(2)(c) to amend a Record of Inquest, such that it could quash parts of the Coroner’s narrative conclusion relating to references of ‘suicide’ but in so doing it did not require the holding of a fresh inquest.

This is a high-level summary of the Shipsey case which involved a novel solution to a section 13 application. Serjeants’ Inn's Rachel Spearing’s article on the decision provides further in depth analysis.

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