Page 118 - When Things Go Wrong

43. Inquests and inquiries should ensure that bereaved people and survivors are
signposted to appropriately specialist sources of support for trauma, including
at the close of the legal process (para 5.3iv).

44. The Chief Coroner and proposed Central Inquiries Unit should clarify that pen
portraits are an important way of placing the bereaved and their loved one at
the heart of the process (para 5.5).

45. The Lord Chancellor should amend the Exceptional Funding Guidance
(Inquests) so as to provide non-means tested public funding for legal
representation for families where the State has agreed to provide separate
representation for one or more interested persons (para 5.23).

46. The mandatory requirement to warn a person of criticism in Rule 13(3) of the
Inquiry Rules 2006 should be revoked and left to the discretion of the inquiry
chair (para 5.28).

Questioning witnesses

47. Advocates and coroners should be required to complete the ICCA Advocacy
and the Vulnerable training programme to ensure appropriate questioning of
witnesses (para 5.10).

48. The Advocate’s Gateway should consider providing a toolkit for questioning
witnesses in inquests and inquiries (para 5.10).

49. Rule 10(4) of the Inquiry Rules 2006 should be amended to allow the legal
representative of a core participant to ask questions of a witness where Articles
2, 3 or 4 ECHR are engaged. The chair should retain discretion to refuse (with
reasons) a line of questioning and to impose time limits on any questioning
(para 5.15).

Learning, Accountability and Systemic change

50. Where the timescale allows, public inquiries should incorporate a formal
process for tracking the steps taken by addressees of interim recommendations
(para 6.12).
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