Page 72 - When Things Go Wrong

4.26 The Working Party appreciates that expense and availability of suitable venues
can pose challenges for inquiry teams. However, in the class of cases with
which the Working Party is concerned, venue design should at minimum aim
to position bereaved people and survivors at the heart of the hearing with:
adequate views of the panel and witnesses; sufficient separation from any
other core participants/interested persons implicated in the events; and
access to private, quiet space.

4.27 The JUSTICE Working Party report Understanding Courts made a number of
recommendations aimed at making court spaces accessible and understandable
for lay users. 201 Several of those proposals are relevant to inquest and inquiry
hearing venues. For example, inquiry teams should ensure that there are
clear signs around the venue and prominently displayed maps at the
entrances. Signs should also be used within the hearing rooms themselves
to indicate to family members as well as members of the public where they
should sit and who other people in the room are. Ahead of all hearings,
bereaved people and survivors should be given familiarisation tours of the
venue.

4.28 The Working Party would suggest that a Central Inquiries Unit within the
Cabinet Office (see paras 2.4-2.7) is well placed to advise inquiry teams on
venue choice and design.

Management of evidence

Disclosure

4.29 A number of our consultees and Working Party members who represent
families voiced frustration with what they described as the “drip-feed” of
disclosed documents from coroners’ offices. One consultee recalled acting in
a military inquest:
I think there were about a dozen interested persons…the whole thing
turned on radio communications and when they were made. We’d been
asking for this to be disclosed, as the Ministry of Defence keeps a

201 JUSTICE (2019), supra note 19, recommendations 13-15.
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