Platts v Coroner for South Yorkshire (East District)

The procedural obligation under Article 2 is engaged where there is at least an arguable case that the state may have breached its substantive obligation to protect life. The threshold is low, although the underlying Osman test remains stringent. A coroner’s decision that Article 2 is not engaged may be quashed where the evidence plainly raises arguable concerns about state failings and the coroner has not adequately analysed them.

For rule 20(2)(h) of the Coroner's Rules 1984, a properly interested person must have a reasonable and substantial interest genuinely directed to the scope of the inquest. A former partner may satisfy that test despite no longer being the deceased’s partner under rule 20(2)(a). A wish to obtain evidence for a damages claim is not, by itself, sufficient, but it does not disqualify an applicant who has a genuine and proper interest for other reasons.

The claimant sought judicial review of two rulings by the coroner conducting the inquest into the death of Mahdi Abdullah Nadir Al-Jaf. The coroner had limited the inquest to the road-traffic aspect, concluding that Article 2 was not engaged. He had also refused the claimant permission to examine witnesses, holding that she was neither the deceased’s partner nor a properly interested person under rule 20 of the Coroner's Rules 1984.

The claimant and the deceased had lived together as partners, although their relationship had broken down shortly before his death. He had returned to her home, displayed seriously disturbed behaviour, self-harmed, made repeated statements indicating that he wished to die, was detained after incidents at hospital and was released by the court shortly before stepping into the path of a lorry. The central issues were whether the evidence raised an arguable Article 2 case and whether the claimant was a properly interested person.

1. Article 2. The court adopted the approach in Gentle v Prime Minister [2008] UKHL 20: the procedural obligation is parasitic on the substantive right, so the claimant had to show at least an arguable case that the substantive Article 2 obligation arose. The relevant substantive test remained the stringent Osman test, as explained in Van Colle v Chief Constable of the Hertfordshire Police [2008] UKHL 50 and Savage v South Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust [2007] EWCA 1375.
2. The coroner had not asked himself the wrong legal question, but his conclusion that there was nothing in the documentation suggesting a breach was one which no reasonable coroner could reach. The evidence raised arguable issues concerning the hospital’s failure to reassess the deceased, the decision to release him, the police response to his vulnerability and the decision to release him from court without assistance. The low threshold for an Article 2 investigation was therefore crossed.
3. The Article 2 ruling was quashed. The court declared that the death required an Article 2-compliant investigation. The scope of that investigation remained for the coroner, although consideration could properly be given to events from the deceased’s return from Ipswich.
4. Rule 20. Applying Driscoll v Coroner for the Southern District of Greater London 1993 Justice of the Peace Reports 45, the court held that the claimant’s interest was reasonable and substantial, not trivial or contrived, and genuinely directed to whether the system had failed the deceased. The coroner unlawfully treated her exclusion under rule 20(2)(a) as making her a stranger to the inquest and failed to consider the close relationship, the deceased’s behaviour and the connection between that behaviour and his death.
5. A damages motive, standing alone, would not make a person properly interested, but it would not disqualify a person who also had a genuine interest directed to the inquest’s proper scope. The rule 20 ruling was quashed and the claimant was declared entitled to participate as a properly interested person under rule 20(2)(h).
6. Applying Davis v Deputy Coroner, the court made no order for costs, save for detailed assessment of the claimant’s publicly funded costs.

First-instance judicial review in the Administrative Court. The court quashed both coroner’s rulings and granted declarations concerning the Article 2 investigation and the claimant’s status under rule 20(2)(h).