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Criminal
The new Chief Coroner, Peter Thornton, has set out his thoughts on the purpose of the coroner system, in a speech to the Howard League for Penal Reform.
These are to let the public know how the death occurred, and to ensure lessons are learned, he said. Thornton said he wanted to reduce the number of post-mortems — of the 500,000 deaths each year in England and Wales, 220,000 are reported to coroners and 93,000 of these undergo post-mortems. Inquests are held in 30,000 of these, 450 with juries. He also paid tribute to the late Pauline Campbell, a fellow trustee at the Howard League, “an ardent campaigner” for young women in prison after her daughter committed suicide in HMP Styall, and who sadly later took her own life. This story showed the need for “a system of fair justice for everybody, in life and in death”.
These are to let the public know how the death occurred, and to ensure lessons are learned, he said. Thornton said he wanted to reduce the number of post-mortems — of the 500,000 deaths each year in England and Wales, 220,000 are reported to coroners and 93,000 of these undergo post-mortems. Inquests are held in 30,000 of these, 450 with juries. He also paid tribute to the late Pauline Campbell, a fellow trustee at the Howard League, “an ardent campaigner” for young women in prison after her daughter committed suicide in HMP Styall, and who sadly later took her own life. This story showed the need for “a system of fair justice for everybody, in life and in death”.
Criminal
The new Chief Coroner, Peter Thornton, has set out his thoughts on the purpose of the coroner system, in a speech to the Howard League for Penal Reform.
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