West London Coroner’s Court

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I echo the feelings of everyone here today in thanking the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry), and I express our sympathy for his personal loss. He understands, as do many of us, but perhaps not to the same degree, how much pain can be caused by even casual incompetence. Just under 18 months ago, a very talented and beautiful 14-year-old girl in my constituency, a neighbour of mine, died. I will not refer to the case directly, but we now know that the case papers were left on a train—I can scarcely imagine the pain and agony caused to that family, who suffered again.

Like all Members here, I have a catalogue of complaints about the operation of the coroner’s office, and they tend to fall into two categories. One is the most basic administrative errors. A constituent of mine, Roniel Mulchan, died on 28 November last year. His mother had some very basic and simple questions to ask of the coroner. We wrote in February 2015, in March and in June—no answers did we receive.

I hear from the hon. Gentleman that the telephone system has improved, and I would like to say that to my constituent Sally McMahon, whose mother died very recently, God rest her soul. My constituent tried to ring the coroner’s office and was told that it shut at 4 o’clock —this was at 3.20 pm. I rang on 10 December and received the same message at 3 o’clock in the afternoon saying, “We are only open until 4 o’clock.” That is casual incompetence of a degree that piles Pelion on Ossa when it comes to the suffering of individuals.

In another particularly unpleasant case, the absence of information was so awful that I wrote to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office in July 2015 on behalf of Dr Batten, whose relative, a constituent of mine, had died. The complaint started with the typical waiting for 45 minutes, rudeness and that sort of stuff, which could almost be discounted. However, as part of the response I received from the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office—my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) is familiar with this, as I am sure the Minister is, but I had previously been unaware—I learned:

“The Coroner’s Office is not run directly by the Coroner, staff and resources are provided by the Local Authority for the area and the Police service. Therefore, if you wish to further your complaint about your experience with the Coroner’s Office…you may wish to contact the Police Service and the Local Authority”.

Sir Roger, you are a distinguished Member of Parliament and you have probably dealt with more casework than anybody else in the room. When you receive a letter such as that, I am sure your reaction is precisely the same as mine, which is, “How on earth can we operate a system where the buck is passed with such dizzying speed that it is more like an ice hockey puck, and it cannot be slowed down in court?”

However, in many ways the most unpleasant, the most egregious and the most disturbing case that I know of relates to the daughter—the child daughter—of my constituent, Mr Seefat Sadat. His daughter died on 17 April 2013. After six months, he came to see me to ask why the inquest had not yet taken place, and I wrote, and I wrote, and I rang, and I wrote, and I wrote again. I then contacted the then Minister, the right hon. Simon Hughes, and received a response from the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) in April 2015. Two years after this child’s death, the inquest had not taken place, and we were told that there were various reasons for that. The right hon. Gentleman—I place no blame whatever at his step—said that the West London senior coroner, who has been referred to obliquely today, telephoned my constituent, as he says,

“on or around 1 April”—

he cannot be sure—

“explaining the problems within his area that have caused this long delay and that he now expects the inquest to take place in June”,

And saying that the coroner was going to reallocate the case on Morwa Sadat’s death. The right hon. Gentleman then went on to point out some structural difficulties and problems within the system.

That simply is not good enough—it is not good enough. We are talking about people who are in agony, who are grieving and who are in pain, and they are hanging on the telephone. They are being fed nonsense, and a child’s death remains unexamined for two years—two years—and I have to bring in Ministers in the coalition Government and even Ministers in the present Government. Fortunately, thanks be to God, it has now been resolved.

How on earth can we say to our constituents, “Trust the system, trust the coroner’s office”, when we have this constant, almost ceaseless, list or catalogue of incompetence? Even when the incompetence is almost casual incompetence, the reverberations it causes throughout a family are so awful.

[Dr Mathias]

I have had experience of very similar situations, and what is distressing for us as MPs is that people’s grieving process is unnecessarily extended and made worse, so there are not just administrative consequences.

[Stephen Pound]

The hon. Lady speaks from a privileged position, because in her profession before she entered this place she obviously had closer dealings with the coroner’s office than many of us do. The fact that she says that certainly adds weight to the point, and I am even more concerned given that she makes those comments.

[Mr Grieve]

The case that I cited was unusual, because, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, my constituency does not fall within the area of the coroner in question. I was therefore particularly startled to receive the information from my constituent about the difficulties she was having with that coroner’s court, because it is so completely at variance with my experience of the other coroner’s courts that I have had to deal with. I would be most interested to know what is so particular about west London as to cause these immense problems, if indeed they are outside the coroner’s hands.

[Stephen Pound]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman also speaks from a position of great authority. It is not for me to say; I hope that the Minister, when she responds to the debate, will indicate some way in which we can ventilate these issues further. I do not believe that west London is unique; I do not believe that it has more problems than, for example, east London. What I think we are talking about here is a structural failure. There is a failure of leadership, without a doubt. The problem is that we have a failing structure, and the leadership required to take the matter forward is absent.

I am conscious of your strictures, Sir Roger, and I want to allow other people to speak. I will simply close by again congratulating the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton on securing this debate and expressing my sympathy to him. I add that the finest tribute in remembrance of his father will be if we, today and in this place, can improve the situation not only for individuals here today but for all our constituents now and in the future. Quite frankly, anything else would be wholly and utterly unacceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

I was not aware of that as I am from the north-east and I do not watch the local news when I am down here. What my hon. Friend says gives a good indication of the lack of care and sensitivity that has been experienced by families who have to access the service at such a devastating time. It seems odd to me that councils and the Met provide admin staff support, but do not have responsibility for the overall service. That confuses families at a time when they should not be expected to find their way through some web of the civil service.

I will not speak for too much longer, because I want to give the Minister as much time as possible to explain what she intends to do to put that right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) has indicated, the council has called for the JCIO to investigate.

[Stephen Pound]

I want to put something seriously on the record, bearing in mind what my hon. Friend has just said, before the Minister responds. The debate is more in sorrow than in anger. It is not an attack on the Government in any way, shape or form. We are absolutely united here. The tone struck by my hon. Friend is exactly the right one. We are not seeking to blame the Government, but we are looking for some hope from the Government on how this situation can be resolved with the greatest expediency.

[Jenny Chapman]

That is exactly right. I know the Minister will care deeply about this and will want to respond and put this matter right as quickly as she possibly can.

The JCIO will let us know in January whether it intends to conduct a full investigation into matters in west London. I sincerely hope that it agrees to do that, and I hope that it is done in a timely fashion so that families who are currently experiencing delays can have their cases heard as quickly as possible, and so that the wider community can have confidence in the service. That is something the Minister will care deeply about and want to put right. I will stop now so that she has as much time as possible to let us know exactly what she intends to do.