Inquests & Inquiries
Susanna is an experienced inquest & inquiries advocate who also sits as an Assistant Coroner. She is currently instructed for a public body Core Participant in the Covid Inquiry, and was instructed in the Infected Blood Inquiry (concluded).
In addition to her work helping clients prepare for inquest and representing clients at inquest, Susanna is experienced in related work and associated challenges, including s.13 applications (applications for a fresh inquest) and judicial review of coronial decisions. Susanna’s wider expertise in health and social care law and mental health law is brought to bear in her approach wherever an inquest involves issues of NHS, local authority or care home involvement.
“Extremely good, very sensible and experienced.”
Chambers & Partners
Susanna is a contributor to the Inquest Law Reports, the Medical Law Reports and the fourth edition of Medical Treatment: Decisions and the Law (June 2022, edited by Christopher Johnston KC)
EXPERIENCE & expertise
Susanna is very experienced in representing clients at inquest and advising in relation to inquest preparation. Clients describe her as responsive and approachable, and value her ‘incredibly practical and very reassuring’ approach. She has experience acting for NHS Trusts, local authorities, care homes, families and other interested persons, such as individual medical practitioners. She has a great deal of experience in longer and ‘complex’ Article 2 inquests, in which her other areas of expertise including mental health law are of assistance in her approach. She has also advised and acted in judicial review proceedings associated with coronial decisions.
Examples of Susanna’s inquest-related work include:
Advising a local authority on their position in relation to s.46(1) of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, in circumstances where a body had lain unburied for several years. The deceased’s surviving spouse was refusing to take any steps in relation to burying the body and had given notice of a possible s.13 application, though had taken no steps to make such an application.
Advising a medical organisation on behalf of a young doctor whom the coroner had described, without warning and at the end of the inquest, as a liar. This triggered the doctor’s duty to self-refer to the General Medical Council. Susanna advised and acted in judicial review proceedings brought by the doctor against the coroner. Permission was granted and the coroner eventually conceded that his comment had been unlawful, being outside the scope of what he was entitled to find, and contrary to the requirements of natural justice. The family objected to the claim, but the Administrative Court agreed with the case as pleaded and struck the coroner’s comments from the record.
Advising and acting for a family at key junctures during a protracted inquest process concerning the death of a young doctor including advice on apparent bias; scope; merits of judicially reviewing the coroner’s decision on scope; advising and representing at pre-inquest review and at inquest, adjourned once the coroner accepted, late, that the General Medical Council would need to be an interested person; advising concerning a complaint against the coroner.
Acting for an NHS Trust in several weeks of inquests concerning the deaths of patients at a particular mental health unit for detained patients where several deaths had taken place in close succession. Issues of care in detention including diagnosis, treatment, risk assessment and discharge planning, as well as ‘contagion’ between patients. Detailed submissions required on scope and jury questionnaire, and advice concerning potential Prevention of Future Deaths report.
Advising and acting for the Official Solicitor after an elderly woman with serious, long-term mental health problems died after the administration of electro-convulsive therapy (‘ECT’). The medical and expert evidence was clear that the treatment had been appropriately administered, but it also exposed serious shortcomings in the national availability of ‘Second Opinion Authorised Doctors’. Such doctors provide a safeguarding role under the Mental Health Act 1983 against the inappropriate use of ECT. In response to concerns raised by the Official Solicitor the coroner made a ‘Prevention of Future Deaths’ report directed at the Department of Health, resulting in the setting out of steps to improve the system.