HC Deb 11 July 1876 vol 230 cc1301-14
LORD FRANCIS HERVEY,

in rising to call attention to the Law respecting Coroners and Coroners' Inquests; and to move— That further legislation is desirable with regard to the qualification and appointment of Coroners and the mode of holding inquests, said, the conditions on which Coroners were appointed and the mode in which they exercised their duties had become so antiquated and obsolete as to call imperatively for reform. The number of Coroners in counties in England and Wales was 233. The number in boroughs was 99. The first thing that struck one in examining the Return from which he obtained these figures was the anomalous manner in which Coroners were distributed. The county of Middlesex, for instance, was satisfied with five. The county of Huntingdon was not satisfied with less, whilst the county of Dorset was not satisfied with less than 11. Norfolk had seven, and Suffolk five, in addition to Coroners at Bury St. Edmund's, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Norwich, The ford, Sudbury, and King's Lynn. Manchester and Liverpool, again, had only one Coroner a piece, while the borough of Malmesbury thought itself entitled to two, though he did not suppose cases of sudden death were more prevalent there than elsewhere. But it was in the qualifications of Coroners that the necessity for reform was most evident. In counties, for instance, one of their qualifications was believed to be the possession of a certain amount of landed estate, but no two authorities could agree as to how much it should be. In fixing that qualification our ancestors were supposed to have aimed at securing for the office the services of men who as being possessed of lands in fee would not be afraid of anybody; but it was unnecessary to say that the possession of land was a ridiculous qualification for a Coroner at the present day. The qualification of borough Coroners was even less satisfactory than that of their county brethren. All that was necessary in their case was that they should answer to the somewhat vague description of being fit persons, and that they should be neither aldermen nor councillors. To any reasonable mind it was perfectly ridiculous that functions of so important and delicate a character as those of Coroners should be left to auctioneers, retired tradesmen, and other persons of a similar kind. He did not believe, for his part, that they could be properly discharged by any man who had not a good legal training. He would say, indeed, that no one but a barrister or a solicitor ought to be made a Coroner, though he was well aware that The Lancet and other medical organs, which regarded such appointments as a nice perquisite for their profession, would raise an outcry at the bare idea of such a thing. In counties Coroners, generally speaking, were elected by the freeholders, and however reasonable that mode of election might have been in ancient times, it was far from being reasonable now-a-days. In these days there could hardly be a worse way of appointing a judicial officer like a Coroner than by exposing him to the chances and changes of a popular election. Of our 232 county Coroners, 175 were elected by the freeholders, and 58 by lords of manors and various officials and dignitaries of that description. In Derbyshire a Coroner was appointed by right of the possession of a horn—a hereditary relic. In Essex a Coroner was appointed by the tenants of a manor; in the county of Northampton by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; in Suffolk by the Dean and Chapter of Ely. The case of the boroughs was, perhaps, better than that of the counties. The borough Coroners were elected for the most part by the Town Councils. In the small boroughs there was likely to be a good deal of jobbery, and perhaps in some of the large ones also. In the boroughs of Rye, Tenterden, and Haverford west the Mayor was ex-officio the Coroner. He should not like to live, or rather to die suddenly, in any of those boroughs, because the inquest then held would probably be of the most imperfect character. The question of the appointment of Coroners, therefore, required a solution of a radical kind, and yet the needed reforms could be based on several ancient precedents. They had centuries ago ceased to appoint magistrates or sheriffs by popular election; and his proposition now was that Coroners should in counties cease to be chosen by the freeholders or appointed by lords of manors or other authorities such as had been mentioned before. To storm the municipal corporations was a more difficult matter, and he felt some alarm in suggesting that they should be deprived of their patronage. He now came to the remuneration of these officers, about which there had been much difficulty and squabbling between Coroners and Justices. Formerly county Coroners were paid by fees, when the county Justices used to do all they could to prevent their payment. The result was that if the Coroner did not hold an inquest he was liable for nonfeasance; and if he did he was almost sure to lose his fees. A Royal Commission and a Select Committee, however, some years ago inquired into that matter, and an Act was passed which put the remuneration of county Coroners on a proper footing by giving them fixed salaries. Borough Coroners, however, were still paid by fees, and in an inconvenient and even absurd manner, as was shown by a Return relating to that matter which was issued in 1872. But the real pith and substance of the question he had to introduce related to the duties of Coroners. He passed by inquiries into wrecks, treasure trove, and other minor duties of Coroners which were now prac- tically obsolete, only remarking that not many years ago the Coroners, in retaliation for the injury done them by Justices, attempted to claim a jurisdiction in cases of arson. The Court of Queen's Bench seemed to have been sorely perplexed at the array of antiquarian arguments marshalled before them, but at last decided very sensibly that Coroners were not to inquire into incendiary fires, or into anything but the death of human beings. The function of Coroners, then, was to make inquiry into all cases of violent, unnatural, or sudden, and suspicious death, but still their duties were not clearly laid down or clearly understood. He had been told of a case of most sudden and suspicious death, which occurred within the last few months, where the Coroner absolutely refused to hold an inquest, and where, though application was made to high authorities, nothing was done, and it was supposed that nothing could be done to make him hold one. He believed that as the law now stood, if a Coroner refused to hold an inquest where one ought to be held, an application could be made to the Court of Queen's Bench by the Attorney General. But that was a roundabout way of getting him to do his duty, because if he did not hold the inquest at once he might as well not hold it at all. The inquest must be held super visum corporis; and if there was much delay this might become impracticable. It was, therefore, a matter of importance that if the Coroner neglected his duty, there should be some machinery for promptly compelling him to do it. On the other hand, within the last year or two they had several times heard of a Coroner exceeding his duty, and obtruding himself without cause upon the private grief of a family to their great annoyance and discomfort. The Home Secretary was obliged to deal with a case of that kind not long ago when an eminent man died. Coroners certainly had not been very successful from the dawn of their history. The first mention of them that he found was that King Alfred hanged a Judge for treating a Coroner's inquest as conclusive. We were not so foolish in these days as to treat an inquest as conclusive. He need not remind the House of the scene in Hamlet which had immortalized "Crowner's quest law." Lord Holt had made some very severe remarks on. a "weak, silly" Coroner of his day. At no time did Coroners seem to have been treated with respect. Blackstone, spoke strongly of the in competency of Coroners, and, coming down to the present time, Sir John Jervis, in his book on Coroners, spoke of them as being in some instances incompetent to discharge even their present limited authority. So that, looking at the history of Coroners' jurisdiction on the whole, it might be said of those officials that, like the unfortunate maidservant in Barnaby Rudge. they had "failed to give satisfaction." But was there nothing to be said in excuse for Coroners? The statute law relating to Coroners and Coroner's inquests was contained in something over 30 different Acts of Parliament. But if the Statute Law on the subject was confused and intricate, it was almost impossible in any case to say what was the Common Law on those matters. When a Bill on that question was brought in, as it must be before long, he hoped that some effort would be made to remove the obscurities and clear up the doubts and difficulties which beset Coroners on all sides in the discharge of their duties. At any rate, the Statute Law on the subject should be reduced to a single Act, and if the Home Secretary could at the same time clear up the doubtful points, or at any rate some of them, in the Common Law, he would do very serviceable work. For instance, what was to be done if a Coroner did not properly discharge his duty? The Attorney General had found it a very difficult matter to get a fresh inquiry in a case where the performance of the Coroner was admitted to be perfunctory and imperfect. The Attorney General knew how difficult it was for him to say what was the proper remedy in such a case, what was the proper mode of proceeding, and how many different modes of proceeding there were. There were a few other suggestions which he would make with regard to the manner in which inquests were held. Could anything be more prejudicial to the proper holding of a Coroner's inquiry than the holding of it, as was so often the case, in a public-house? Surely there was something perfectly disgusting in holding an inquiry so solemn and sometimes so delicate in a public-house with jingling glasses and the shouts of drunken persons all around, As to the publicity of the proceeding, to his mind it was of cardinal importance that a judicial inquiry of this kind should be taken in the full light of day, and that it should not be open to the Coroner, from mere caprice or a desire to make a show of his authority, to clear his court—a Court of Record—of all the public, and conduct the proceedings as he pleased in the dark. That was surely a very important point. Was it advisable that we should invariably have recourse to a jury in inquiries of this kind? Did a jury really assist the Coroner? In many cases was not the Coroner impeded in the inquiry by a jury? The Coroner was supposed to take down the evidence of the witnesses in writing, and to procure the signature of the witnesses to it. On this point the law was obscure. But the Coroner sometimes took down the evidence wrong, and did not read it over to the witness. Was it to be tolerated that statements should be put into the mouths of witnesses which they never made? The object which our forefathers in their wisdom wished to attain by establishing Coroners throughout the country was that in cases of sudden or violent or suspicious death there should be a searching and immediate inquiry. They wished, as far as they could, that that inquiry should be held before officials of whose abilities there was no question, whose character was beyond reproach. We could not altogether say that that was the case now. It was surely not less necessary in these days than of old that a Coroner's inquiry should be searching and immediate and before competent persons. He thought he had made out a case for a considerable and a speedy alteration of the law on this subject. The noble Lord concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

MR. SERJEANT SIMON,

in seconding the Motion, said, the House was indebted to the noble Lord for having brought under its attention this subject, which was only one of many illustrations of the extent to which the English nation was apt to tolerate an evil until some striking instance of wrong occurred. A recent case had brought the question of Coroners' inquests under public consideration. The office of Coroner was one of the oldest judicial offices on record. In olden times Coroners were not allowed to take fees. Their office was a most dignified one, and Chaucer, in his description of the Franklein mentions it thus— At sessions ther was he lord and sire, Ful often time he was knight of the shire, A shereve hadde he ben, and a coronour, Was no wher swiche a worthy vavasour. In fact, by the Statute of Westminster I. none but "lawful and discreet knights" were to be chosen as Coroners, and in the reign of Edward III. a Coroner was removed from office because he was only a merchant. He (Mr. Serjeant Simon) greatly doubted the utility of the office of Coroner at the present time. If we had stipendiary magistrates all over the country he would say, transfer the duties of Coroner to them. But as that was not practicable we had to consider how we could best give effect to the object for which the office of Coroner was intended. Coroners had formerly to inquire into wrecks and to perform the duties of the Sheriff during his absence, and they thus combined judicial with administrative functions. The office, however, at the present time was purely judicial, involving great responsibility and requiring judgment and tact, and great experience in the ways of life. The Coroner should possess legal knowledge to enable him to conduct his inquiries efficiently and delicacy of feeling and a wise discretion to know when it was necessary and when it was unnecessary to intrude into the privacy of a sorrowing family. He could name one signal instance where a lady having died by her own hand the Coroner had directed a post mortem examination for the purpose of ascertaining not the cause of death, but her condition which had led her to take her own life; and there were cases where Coroners through want of tact and delicacy had unnecessarily dragged matters to light which could serve no public good, and would have been better left in darkness. He had many communications corroborating his assertion that many Coroners discharged the duties of their office inefficiently, and often so as to render the inquiry a mere waste of public time and expense, and as a means for the promulgation of idle gossip. In his opinion, the office should be filled by a trained lawyer accustomed to judicial proceedings, and qualified to deal with evidence, and not by a medical man. On the question whether these inquiries should be conducted openly or in private he referred to a decision of Lord Tenterden, in which that learned Judge laid it down that as an inquest was a preliminary inquiry in which the reputations of persons might unnecessarily be placed in jeopardy, it should be left to the discretion of the Coroner whether or not it should be held openly or in private. Occasions might arise on which unnecessary pain might be occasioned to surviving relatives and friends by the holding of public inquests, and therefore power should be given to Coroners to hold inquests in private; but, as a power of this kind might be abused, it was important that every person chosen to fill the office of Coroner should not only possess the necessary professional ability, but should be a man of the highest character. He ought to be above suspicion of corruption, and should be a man of honour and a gentleman. With reference to the mode of the appointment, nothing could be less conducive to the credit of the office than the mode of election. He had great regard for popular election when applied to its proper objects; but certainly objected to popular election when applied to a judicial office. The contest for the office often turned upon the question of who could spend most money. Altogether it seemed to him that it was well worthy the consideration of the Home Secretary, whether the time had not come for bringing in some measure which would remedy the evils complained of. For his own part, he agreed with the noble Lord as to the need there was for a consolidation of the laws relating to Coroners, an alteration of the mode of appointment, and the providing of some guarantee that Coroners should be men of character and possessing proper qualifications for the office.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That further legislation is desirable with regard to the qualification and appointment of Coroners and the mode of holding inquests."—(Lord Francis Hervey.)

MR. CLARE READ,

in supporting the Motion, said, he was prepared to go further than his noble Friend who had brought the question forward, and to say that the time had arrived when the office of Coroner might be abolished altogether with very satisfactory results. The office was a very ancient one, but it was of no use continuing it if it was not required. In 90 per cent of inquests held the verdict was one of death from natural causes, and he believed that a great number of inquests were held when they were entirely unnecessary, and much trouble and expense were thereby entailed upon everybody concerned. He hoped to live to see the day when a great change would be made in the mode of these inquiries, some of which would be much better made before magistrates. One of the chief difficulties arising from the existing state of the law was that the jurisdictions of the Coroners overlapped each other, and the people who found it necessary to suggest the holding of inquests did not know to which Coroner in a county, or a division of a county, application should be made. With regard to the mode in which Coroners were elected, there were many absurdities that ought to be swept away. As they had heard, there were no fewer than seven different Coroners for Norfolk, while in East Anglia there was one Coroner an auctioneer, another a land agent, a third a doctor, a fourth called himself a gentleman, but he (Mr. Read) really did not know what he was by profession, and there were two or three who were lawyers. Could anything be more confusing, perplexing, or stupid than this arrangement? Conservative as he was, he was enough of a Reformer to think that the time had come when the office of Coroner might be abolished, and when better arrangements might be made for the fulfilment of the duties of the office.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

said, the noble Lord opposite had done good service in bringing the subject under the consideration of the House. He had not expected, however, to hear the question treated in so radical a spirit as had been evinced by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down; and he could not go so far as to say that Coroners ought to be abolished, as there was a great deal of work which could be properly and justly done by Coroners. The recommendations of the noble Lord were more practical. He agreed with the noble Lord that the existing mode of appointment was unsatisfactory, and that a change was necessary; but as to how the appointments should be carried out that was a difficult matter to decide. He should not like to see all these appointments centralized in the Home Office, although it would probably be acceptable to almost every Member of the House that the responsibility of choosing the body which should in future appoint the Coroners should be left with the Government. Inquiries before the Coroner had often to be re-opened, and of late there had been many cases of complaint of this kind in relation to Coroners, and there was a ease in point relating to the case of Mr. Bravo. There were numerous cases in which Coroners' inquests did not give satisfaction; and there were some in which there was an absolute failure of justice. Surely it ought to be sufficient to make application to the Home Secretary or the Lord Chancellor to have an inquiry re-opened instead of having to resort to the circuitous process of applying to the Court of Queen's Bench. The question of law was one which affected the legal administration of the country, and there was no doubt that the present appointment of Coroners was bad, and that there should be some better procedure in the matter of Coroners' inquests. If the right hon. Gentleman opposite intended to deal with the subject, he would suggest that all the Acts relating to Coroners should be consolidated.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

expressed a hope that the House would disassociate the discussion altogether from any recent case which had happened. He rather regretted that the Motion should have been brought forward just after a case of a Coroner's inquest had been prominently brought before the public. Long before that case occurred this question had occupied a good deal of his attention, and indeed he had for years been of opinion that the time had come when the whole question of Coroners and their inquiries should be subjected to great change. After what had been said as to individual Coroners, however, he would say that a great deal of good had been performed by the existing Coroners. Though in individual instances justice might have miscarried, the great body of the Coroners did their duty to the best of their knowledge and ability, and that a great deal of good had resulted from their inquiries. In his opinion, it would not do to abolish the office of Coroner. He happened to be mixed up to a great extent with in- quiries as to colliery and other explosions, and in such cases a great deal of information had been furnished to him, and the inquiries by Coroners had given rise to great satisfaction among the classes whose lives were subjected to accident in this particular way. He had, indeed, in such cases sent down an officer from the Home Office to see that the case was properly conducted and the whole facts brought out. Having said so much on behalf of the Coroners as a body, he had not the slightest hesitation in adding that the present state of the law was bad in many particulars. It was true that there were too many Coroners, and that they were unequally apportioned over the country, though this did not work any practical evil; but, if the law was to be altered, that question must be taken into consideration. In the case of the appointment of an officer who had one of the highest judicial functions to perform, and who always held out his office as being older and higher than that of the magistrate, such an officer should, in his opinion, have particular qualifications for his office. An inquest was a judicial inquiry, and the person presiding at it ought to have been trained as a lawyer, to be practised in weighing evidence and drawing the truth from the witnesses, so that he might guide the jury to a right conclusion. If, therefore, the law was altered, the qualification for the office of Coroner should be a knowledge of the law and some standing in the legal Profession. A great deal had been said of the election of Coroners, and he must say he could not conceive a worse mode of election for a judicial officer than a popular election by the freeholders of the county. There were instances without end of enormous sums of money being spent in order to secure the election of a Coroner. He did not know that the statutes against bribery extended to the elections of Coroners, although the Common Law might; but if such sums of money as were sometimes heard of were necessary to be spent in the election of Coroners, the sooner that kind of election was put an end to the better. He would not, however, say with whom he thought the appointment of Coroners should rest. He certainly had not the smallest wish that it should rest with the Secretary of State; but he thought the means might be found by which the process of appoint- ment might be much simplified and the best man selected. With respect to the duties of the Coroner, he must say when a man duly qualified was appointed, they ought, in a matter of this kind, to leave a great deal to his discretion. Formerly the Coroner stood in a very awkward, position. The justices of quarter sessions might be of opinion that he had held inquests which he ought not to have held, and might stop his fees, and, at the end of five years, fix a low average in order to limit his salary. One of those cases which often happened was this—a great explosion occurred in a mine and a large number of people were killed. He had known instances where the Coroner held as many as 30 or 40 inquests. He might clearly have ascertained the cause of death by holding two or three, though more than one might have been necessary, because all the persons might not have met their deaths in the same way; and certainly imputations had been brought against Coroners of increasing the number of inquests to increase the amount of fees. That was extremely improper. But he thought the duties of the Coroner might very easily be better defined by statute than at present. Something had been said of holding inquests in public-houses. He always regretted that should be the case, but inquests must be held somewhere. They had no right to hold them in a private house, and they could not always secure a place other than a public-house in which inquests could be held. He thought that was a matter that might fairly be left to the discretion of the Coroner. With respect to the persons who should compose the Coroner's jury, he thought they should be drawn from the same panel as in all other cases. Every man was bound to perform the office of juryman for the benefit of his fellow-countrymen, and this was one of the most important functions of a juryman. The jury lists for the Coroner should, therefore, be made out like all other lists by the Sheriff. With regard to the consolidation of the law relating to the office of Coroner, he thought the whole law should be put in one clear and intelligible statute. The re-opening of the inquiry was, he thought, rather a difficult question. When a duly qualified man was properly appointed, he did not think the inquiry should be rashly re- opened. The Court of Queen's Bench for some time considered, that they should not grant a second inquiry unless some imputation, almost imputing fraud, were made against the conduct of the Coroner. But in a recent case they had come to another conclusion. He certainly thought that it would not be right to give the Secretary of State or even the Lord Chancellor power to grant a second inquiry. They ought to take great care where the liberty of the subject was concerned not to place such a power in the hands of any political officer. It would be much better to leave it to the Courts of Law, although it might be possible to simplify and shorten the process by which the application should be made. He was very glad this question had been brought forward by the noble Lord; but he hoped the country would not think it had been brought forward simply on account of any special circumstance that had arisen of late. It was a question which had received not only his own attention, but that of other Secretaries of State, and he promised the noble Lord it should not be lost sight of. He was far from wishing that the noble Lord should withdraw his Resolution; he rather desired that it should be affirmed by the House in order to show that it was the deliberate opinion of the House that the time had arrived when the office of Coroner should be reformed. In what he had said he had no desire to impute to the Coroners anything like misconduct in the way they generally discharged the duties of their office, believing that in the vast majority of cases honest and substantial justice was done.

SIR THOMAS BAZLEY

feared that the conduct of some Coroners had fairly exposed an ancient office to the attacks that had been made upon it; for instance, take two cases in which Coroners had directed juries to return verdicts of wilful murder. In one a young schoolboy inadvertently killed another by discharging a pistol, and in the other a child was run over by a brewer's dray, and the verdict was given, not against the driver, but against the owner, who was a hundred miles away from the place. He concurred in the opinion of the Home Secretary that the office of the Coroner should be perpetuated, but altered so as to make it more serviceable to the country by a better discharge of the duties appertaining to it. He was in favour of a thorough reform of the present law for the election and regulation of the office of Coroner.

DR. LUSH

said, he was glad to hear from the Home Secretary that he was desirous of preserving the ancient office of Coroner. As a general rule, Coroners were not open to the reproach that had been cast upon them in the course of that debate. No doubt many inquiries were improperly held, but they had a beneficial effect in deterring persons from committing punishable offences. They were Courts of Inquiry rather than Judicial Courts, and if judicial knowledge was necessary in the person who filled the office, so also was medical knowledge essential to the proper discharge of the duties.

MR. H. T. COLE

said, that last Session he introduced a Bill on this subject, but unfortunately it shared the fate of Bills introduced by private Members. In considering the question he came to the conclusion that the election of Coroner by the freeholders—a grave in a churchyard giving a qualification—should be abolished, and given to the magistrates in quarter sessions; and if that was not sufficiently popular the Guardians of the poor could be joined with them, which would give a sufficiently popular mode of election, and materially lessen the expense attendant on the present mode of election, which frequently cost from £10,000 to £12,000. The result was that the expense deterred the most competent man from soliciting the office. He had no wish to abolish the office, because if that were done a similar one must be created. He was much pleased to hear the Home Secretary say that the office should be held by a trained lawyer, because trained medical skill could always be obtained, and at a moment's notice, to make the necessary examinations and give the proper evidence as to the cause of death. The noble Lord had done good service in bringing the subject before the House, and he trusted the Resolution would not become a dead letter.

Motion agreed to.