July 7th People's Independent Inquiry Forum -> The Inquests

The Inquests, Coroners, etc

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Sinclair

Posted: Nov 27 2009, 07:37 AM

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QUOTE

Lady Justice Hallett, who has been appointed to act as coroner, told the families she was legally bound to hold inquests at the same time.

Jack Straw as Lord Chancellor would have appointed Lady Justice Hallett....

So all the fuss over the purported 'one case' [Azelle Rodney] that the new Inquest legislation will affect & then 4 (or so) days after the new Inquest legislation is passed (in a procedural farce), the new Inquest rules ('which will be used sparingly') are dolloped out for 56 Inquests.

I wonder if any announcements have been made regarding the Azelle Rodney case. If not, the citing/use of the Azelle rodney case as the reason for the change in the Inquest rules is disingenuous.

numeral	Posted: Nov 27 2009, 08:18 AM
Group: J7 Forum Team Posts: 3,991 Member No.: 5 Joined: 4-December 05	^It seems that Lady Justice Hallett has been appointed as coroner to hold a traditional inquest. Of course, later on the procedure in the Coroners and Justice Act could be used to turn it into a 2005 Inquiries Act inquiry.

numeral

Posted: Nov 27 2009, 08:38 AM

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CODE

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/uk-world-news/2009/11/27/family-anger-over-july-7-inquests-100252-25265490/

QUOTE

Family anger over July 7 inquests
Nov 27 2009

Families of the 52 innocent people killed in the July 7 bombings said they were left "absolutely devastated" by the decision to hold inquests into the victims' deaths at the same time as those of the bombers.

Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed in the Edgware Road Tube attacks in London, said the announcement came as a "real blow" and criticised its "insensitivity".

He was speaking after Lady Justice Hallett, a Court of Appeal judge, met with the families to explain she will hold a pre-inquest hearing early next year.

The full inquests are expected to follow in the autumn. She told the families she had no choice but to hold the inquests of the four bombers at the same time as those of the victims, Mr Foulkes said. "I hadn't anticipated that and it came as a real blow," he said.

"The temperature dropped in the room. There was just shock and people were very close to tears."

He said Lady Justice Hallett was "keen to stamp her authority on proceedings, but then said her hands were tied" when it came to hearing all the inquests together. "Just the insensitivity of having the murderers and the victims all being dealt with in the same process and the families mixing together... We had a lot of questions for her."

Mr Foulkes, of Oldham, went on: "It'll be over five years (since the attacks) which brings its own pain. But I really do feel let down again. We're the victims but we seem to get the rough end of the stick every time."

He said the situation was made worse by the fact the victims' families were told they would not be able to receive legal aid to help pay for representation during the inquest, which he expects to last four or five months.

The inquests were opened immediately after the suicide attacks on three London Underground trains and a bus in 2005, but adjourned until the end of criminal cases linked to the bombings. Victims' families have complained about delays in holding the inquests and raised fears about the possibility of secret hearings.

Powers which became law earlier this month allow Justice Secretary Jack Straw to order secret judicial inquiries in place of inquests.

cmain

Posted: Nov 27 2009, 02:44 PM

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I don't think we have covered this before.

A current local news story in my area concerns an inquest that returned a "narrative verdict", and I wondered what it was.

According to Yahoo Answers:

QUOTE

A narrative verdict, introduced in 2004, is a factual record of how, and in what circumstances, the death occurred.

It may include facts such as where the death took place, the cause or causes of the death, any defects in the system which may have contributed to the death and any other relevant factors.

The verdict does not allow anyone to attribute criminal or civil liability to any named individual.

I have tried to discover how this was introduced in 2004, and it appears to have been by legal precendent rather than by parliamentary enactment, judging by an article in the Law Gazette:

QUOTE

The second limit relates to the outcome of the investigation and what a coroner can and cannot decide. Before a groundbreaking case in 2004, a coroner was supposed to ascertain how a person died. Since 2004, coroners can now decide on the circumstances which led to a person�s death (in what is known as �a narrative verdict�). The current bill (Coroners and Justice Bill 2009) puts this new position, derived from case law, into statute. But a coroner can only discuss the circumstances of the death insofar as they do not apportion liability, whether criminal or civil, which is strictly prohibited.

The problem with this is that a coroner may be wary of including certain issues, using certain words and mentioning specific acts or omissions for fear that he or she is opening up issues of liability. This, critics say, means that the verdict is unsatisfactory both for the family and for society as a whole, as it cannot properly determine anything. Instead, campaigners such as Inquest argue that the coroner should be free to say what happened, and what acts or omissions there were, without having to concern himself about liability. In its recent briefing on the bill, Inquest says: �The issue in an inquest is responsibility, not liability � [the bill should] free a coroner (or a jury) to describe the acts or omissions which are responsible for the death.�

Bridget

Posted: Nov 28 2009, 01:12 AM

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QUOTE

27 November, 2009 18:15 (GMT +00:00)

Will 7/7 death probe become UK's first secret inquest?

News this week that victims of the 7/7 bombings will have a joint inquest with their killers just as new legislation has been passed has prompted fears the probe will be held behind closed doors.

Relatives of the 52 people killed in the London suicide attacks expressed fury and "disgust" that the long delayed investigation of their loved ones deaths will include those who murdered them.

Lady Justice Hallet, the specially appointed coroner, said the inquest would have to include Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain as they died in the same incident. Families said the judgment came like a "bolt from the blue."

She is an Appeals Court Judge who has never officiated an inquest.

Law passed just before parliament closed � intercept evidence

The use of intercept evidence and the revelation of surveillance tactics is thought to have been behind the five year wait for an investigation.

Before Parliament closed earlier this month, buried deep away in the Coroners and Justice Bill, the government inserted a provision to request a secret inquest.

In April the proposal had been dropped, its reappearance unexpected. The bill eventually passed in a close vote -the government�s majority being reduced to just eight at one point, it is now law.

While the Lord Chief Justice will have the power to veto a request for a private inquest and appoint the judge, ministers would still be able to set an inquest's terms of reference whilst restricting who can attend and what information was published. The press, even the bereaved can be barred from proceedings.

Straw insists only a tiny number of cases would be affected - the same argument that was used to justify anti-terror legislation.

Will there be a whitewash?

The only other high profile case held up by 'national security' is that of unarmed Londoner Azelle Rodney, who was shot dead in the back seat of a car that was under surveillance and intercepted by CO19 Firearms officers.

Lady Hallet was asked by a relative whether the new laws meant the inquest would be a whitewash.

Graham Foulkes, whose son David, 22, died in the attacks told The Times:

"She was very keen to impress on us that she was a senior judge, that she was her own woman and would not be told how to conduct the inquest. But she was forced to admit she had never conducted an inquest before and, when asked about the new law, told us she had not read the legislation."

There has been no public inquiry into the bombings, former Prime Minister Tony Blair saying that an independent inquiry would undermine support for the security service.

The unanswered questions

We may now never know the details of MI5's investigation into the bombers ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan, whom they judged "not to be a threat" and the assertions that the attackers had been "clean-skins" unknown to the security services.

Details of how Khan and another bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, came repeatedly under surveillance in 2004 were disclosed in 2007 after five of their associates were jailed for life for planning attacks around south-east England.

The discovery that Khan was reinvestigated the following year appears to contradict claims from MI5 of a "quick risk assesment of Khan."

Other matters may also be screened from the public, such as the briefing from the then French Interior Minister, French President Nicolas Sarkozy who said that one of the bombers had been described the previous year at an Anglo-French security meeting as an asset of British Intelligence.

American intelligence figures claimed that Khan was known to convicted terrorist Mohammed Junaid Babar, who helped set up a training camp for Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan - he apparently identified a photograph of Khan as that of a man he had met in Pakistan.

Former Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis is on record as saying:

"It is becoming more and more clear that the story presented to the public and Parliament is at odds with the facts."

What we would not not

If held under under todays law, would the public ever have known the full circumstances surrounding the shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes?

That investigation returned an open verdict; the jury did not believe Metropolitan police officers testimony that they gave the innocent Brazilian a warning identifying themselves as armed police - something witnesses on the train said did not happen.

Disinformation was also given a public airing "Jumped the ticket barrier, refused to obey a police order, bulky jacket on a hot day, wires sticking out of his pocket."

But that inquest also proved that there are existing tools that can protect national security, officer X, officer Charlie.

Civil rights campaigners fear that the clause provides a mechanism to cover up any deaths that could reveal negligence, wrongdoing, scrutinise or cause embarrassment to a government.

source

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