HC Deb 30 April 1896 vol 40 cc197-8
MR. H. C. RICHARDS (Finsbury, E.)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is aware that in the county of Durham, by an order of Quarter Sessions, dated 30th December 1861, police constables are requested not to give notice to coroners in cases where bodies of sailors are found drowned on the sea beach after a storm, or in any case where the death has been caused by lightning; whether this order is still in force; and, whether he can state under what law (common or statute) the magistrates in Quarter Sessions passed this resolution, and if they have any power to control the police officers of the county as to the cases to be reported to the coroner?

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, Blackpool

I am informed that an order in the terms mentioned in the Question was made at the Epiphany Quarter Sessions, 1861; but that the order, though never actually rescinded, has long ceased to be acted upon, the Police reporting all such cases to the coroners. The order was, I suppose, made by the Quarter Sessions as the police authority for the county under the Counties Police Acts. I am advised that it is within the competence of the police authority, who are now, as I need not remind the hon. Member, the Standing Joint Committee of the Magistrates and County Council, to issue instructions to their force in the matter of reporting cases to coroners as in other matters relating to the control and conduct of the force.