Page 83 - When Things Go Wrong

witness and the police barrister had me on the stand for three and a half hours.
He battered me literally with questions. He accused me of not caring about my
son, he was shouting at me, slamming books, was so aggressive. The coroner
did nothing for a long time, he was asking very offensive questions and only
after three and a half hours the coroner said ‘okay that’s enough now’”.

INQUEST submission to Review of the Hillsborough Families’
Experiences by the Rt Rev Bishop James Jones (2017), pp. 11-12.

5.7 Dame Elish Angiolini recommended that the Chief Coroner should issue
formal guidance to coroners to prevent inappropriate or aggressive questioning
of next of kin by counsel for interested persons. 225 Certainly, coroners have a
vital role to play in controlling questioning during hearings. 226 This should be
supplemented by proactive case management; for example, the second
Hillsborough inquests included a procedural stage akin to a ground-rules
hearing to prepare for the questioning of witnesses suffering from post-
traumatic stress disorder.

5.8 The vast majority of consultees agreed with us as to the potential value of
training on questioning vulnerable witnesses – for advocates and tribunals. One
senior lawyer told us that before acting as counsel to the inquest in a major
hearing, they “had a long session with a psychologist, asking him lots of
questions. You can think you’re pretty good, but there are always techniques
to be learnt”.

5.9 Recent JUSTICE Working Parties Understanding Courts and Prosecuting
Sexual Offences recognised the importance of “[c]ontinuing professional
development training courses on vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, such as
the [ICCA] Advocacy and the Vulnerable training programme and guidance on
questioning vulnerable witnesses in toolkits produced by the Advocates’

225 Angiolini, supra note 15, p. 243, recommendation 76.
226 One of our consultees suggested that limiting adversarial questioning falls within the scope of the
principles set down by Lord Justice Clarke in his Public Inquiry into the Identification of Victims
Following Major Transport Accidents (Cm 5102, 2001), which include “respect for the deceased and
the bereaved” and “a sympathetic and caring approach throughout”. The consultee stressed that any
training or guidance to coroners should be centred on Lord Justice Clarke’s principles.
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