Bereavement due to traumatic death

There had to be a post mortem.

 

 

Well like everything else I accepted it like a lamb. There had to be because there might have been, there might have been actions brought by the police.

 

So there had to be a post mortem and I think the coroner’s officer explained that too, that was one of the things she talked about that evening that Matthew died. So we did have to wait for a post mortem and the coroner’s officer kept in touch; rang several times and she had given me her telephone numbers and had stressed to me that if I had any questions or was worried about anything then I could contact her at any time. And she was as good as her word. She was very, very good. And I spoke to her several times about various things.

 

 

No, I haven’t. The inquest was a long, long time. It felt like an awfully long time although in fact it was probably, it was six months. …It was six months, which was probably not as long as I thought it might be. And that was a dreaded day. And before that there was an occasion when the coroner’s officer came here. My ex-husband and my daughter and daughter’s partner and myself were all here and we had to make a statement about my son and about, particularly about his driving habits and our view of his driving.

 

 

Yes she did, very, yes, very carefully, even down to how the room would look and where, where we might sit and who would be there. And I did have a list of who would be there.

 

And I was told who there were like, you know, in cars following. There was, there was a, a driver who turned right, that’s what happened. She didn’t see my son, and my son didn’t know she was turning right. And there were a line of cars behind her. And [sighs] so, yes, we went, there was huge trepidation about the, the inquest. Because again it was a, another milestone and one like the funeral which I really didn’t want to come because to me it was something that the rest of the world saw as a stage in life after my son died, after the death of my son. And I didn’t want to get on with those stages.

 

 

Well she talked through the results of the path, the examination, and also actually allowed us to see the photos of the crash site, which was very important. We found it very important to understand what had happened. My brother was a very experienced rider.  

 

He was not a boy racer. You know he was thirty-four and had been riding since he was sixteen. He was quite a mature rider. So we needed to understand. And I think particularly my mum who doesn’t ride bikes and hasn’t really ridden bikes, so probably had less of an understanding of what you do on a bike and how things happen.

 

And the coroner’s assistant visited us and talked us through all of that. And talked us through the results of the medical so we understood exactly what had killed him, and some of the circumstances around that. She ran through with us the format of the inquest and the people who would be there. And also gave us a little bit background on the coroner himself, because she was concerned that he might be one of those people who was a little bit dismissive of bike deaths.

 

And in fact we didn’t find that with, we found that he was, he was quite fair. He didn’t belabour any point unfairly we didn’t think. So that was helpful, so at least we knew what to expect.  

 

 

I was told after chasing one particular coroner’s officer that as next of kin it was not my job to chase up the files. And I said, “I’m not next of kin. I’m their mother.”

 

But I did, she did grant me early, early disclosure, which she… [laughs] …she let me do two days before Christmas.

 

 

She’s let me see the complete file [prepared for the inquest].

 

 

Yes. So I know. I said I have to see exactly what is in there because I still wasn’t clear on a few things. I had to see exactly what’s in there so when we go into that courtroom I’m ready. I don’t want to break down in front of everyone. I want to know now.

 

And I’m ready.

 

 

No it’s, it’s not a ruling. It’s as I said it’s at their discretion. They don’t have to grant early disclosure. I’m considered a “properly interested party”, not their mum, but a “properly interested party”.

 

I also requested that they did my husband’s inquest at a different time to the children. But they won’t.

 

 

No they wouldn’t send me copies. I had to go to the police station to view them there. A coroner’s officer was loitering in the background. And was busy telling me I didn’t need to see this, didn’t need to that.

 

Which I think had absolutely nothing to do with him.

 

You know he’s not me. I’m sure there are some people who don’t need to but I do.

 

But what I did is I contacted the, the police officer who was running the case, I asked him could I have one of my FLO’s [family liaison officer’s] to accompany me, just in case I went off the rails a bit.

 

Which they did so.

 

 

Yes. So she just came and she sat there whilst I read through. I had a bit of a sob. And I say, “I didn’t know about that.” And she said, “Sorry Alison.” And that’s you know, that’s it. And that’s all I needed. And I yep, bit of cry and came outside and I’m all right.

 

 

I do. 

 

I have.

 

Never, ever. Yes I have never spoken to, I mean the Coroner that we had, the original Coroner that we had, the one who wouldn’t release the body, our solicitor asked him for disclosure of the evidence so that we could prepare for the inquest, and after initially refusing he eventually agreed but he said he would only release it if we paid him £566. The solicitor phoned and said, “You know what do you think?” And I said, “I’ll pay anything, anything, I don’t care, it’s only money. And I just don’t care.” So we paid him, my daughter in law obviously couldn’t pay, so we paid the £566 for the disclosure of evidence.

 

 

Photocopying. He also charged us, there were two other solicitors involved, there was two companies involved, my son’s employer and another company, who were all breaking the law, he also charged them £566 to supply the same photocopies. I was speaking down in London at a conference, a CCA [Centre for Corporate Accountability] conference, and I happened to say this in part of my speech. I said this, and a Coroner that was in the audience came forward and said, “You should never have been charged for that.”

 

 

So I contacted my MP at that point, who wrote to the Minister of Justice, and the Ministry of Justice wrote to the Coroner saying that there was no basis in law for charging for disclosure of evidence and that he should refund us the money.

 

And he refused.

 

 

The Coroner refused. So we then, our solicitor then said that we would raise an action in the small claims court, in my name, to get this money back, which we did. We wrote to the Coroner saying that I was going to take him to the small claims court in his area, to get this money back and at that point he repaid the money and withdrew from our case.

 

 

He’s he repaid the money, but only, only after threatening him with…

 

 

It was paid to him, directly, no the money was paid to him directly, it was his money. And it was, when it was repaid it was repaid from his private bank, from his own bank account.

 

 

And he withdrew from the case. I then wrote to the Office of Judicial Complaints who deal with complaints against Coroners and that was where all the information, the information from my solicitor and all the investigation I had done on the internet, printed off what Coroners should do, how they should behave etc, etc. I sent everything off to them, and they were going to take the complaint up, they had agreed that they would take this complaint forward, and then we discovered that the Coroner was terminally ill.

 

 

Well over a period of yes, yes. I withdrew the complaint on the basis that you know I would show his family you know all the compassion that he never showed to mine.

 

Well the inquest was put on hold whilst the police decided whether there was going to be charges. There was going to be an inquest and when we initially thought there were going to be no charges against the bus driver, the inquest was scheduled actually for Steph’s birthday, in May, which was like eight months after the accident. Then the police changed their mind and decided it was going to go to court, so the inquest then is put off until after the court case. The court case collapsed and I, I automatically assumed there would be an inquest, in fact the local papers who’d covered it, you know, had been saying have to wait for the inquest now to find out what happened and why my wife died. Then I got a letter from the Coroner saying, there was no point in having an inquest because they thought all the relevant points had been covered. It was only then that I discovered what an inquest was for, which is for who, when, where and how, but the how means literally how, you know she, she was struck by a bus, not how did the bus go out of control, they don’t cover that. And I didn’t realise that. So I got quite , a bit of a sympathetic letter from the coroner saying they were sorry but I am satisfied all points have been covered, we’re not going to have an inquest. And I wrote quite an angry letter back, in retrospect looking at it, and I do understand why legally there’ll be no inquest but I’ve still got no answers to my wife’s death, this is something I’ve got to, I know I ranted on a bit emotionally, I shouldn’t have done, but it was a polite and formal enough letter to the coroner, I never got one back though, huh. No.

 

 

Yes, never spoke to the Coroner herself, it’s very formal, it’s very cold and clinical.

 

 

No I only spoke on the phone. 

My family had to look at still photographs and CCTV footage of my son's last moments including the explosion, we had to listen to witnesses, ex-colleagues who we knew were lying and experts who said the man who killed my son so heartlessly must have known of the dangers involved. The Coroner was excellent, thorough, sensitive and extremely intelligent. We had to listen to the man who killed my son shout, rant and bully, even shouting after my family as we had to leave court too upset to listen further.

 

The coroner took the extremely unusual step of offering the jury the option of an unlawful killing, manslaughter verdict and explained his reasons. The jury took only 3 hours to come back with a very weak narrative verdict only for the most paltry of reasons.

 

How do I feel now? I am totally devastated. I have lost my son all over again. I have lost my faith in my fellow citizens who apply double hypocritical standards. Had this man been a driver in which a relative of one of the jury was a passenger, supplied no safety belts, had no driving licence, had been drinking, ignored all road warning signs, drove at 100mph resulting in crashing his car killing their relative, I'm sure the members of that jury would have rightly expected him to be charged and face a prison sentence. But when an employer does the equivalent they say he should walk away without any charge because he put his own life at risk. If I could give up my British passport I would.

 

I feel ashamed of my country, extremely angry and totally bereft. The terrible thing is that this is how all the families of those killed at work are treated in this country.

 

I know this will not help anyone who is facing this terrible experience but I can only say how I feel, there is no point in giving hope where there is none. Shall I continue to fight for justice for others through Families Against Corporate Killers? At the moment I am absolutely exhausted but I suspect I will. It took many years of struggle to abolish slavery, this is the modern equivalent.

 

It would have been at least six months, I would say six months.

 

 

Yes, easily. Before the inquest and it was an inquest in a coroner’s court and the outcome of it was accidental death. And it was then referred to the magistrate’s court.

 

 

Yes at the inquest we had, I had a barrister present, to represent me on behalf of my son, and the barrister was recommended to us from RoadPeace, again, that was a tremendous support. I didn’t get any chance, I didn’t have a chance to say anything at all, it was basically the coroner, the police, and my barrister just asked a few questions, but he was not permitted to interrogate or the driver of the vehicle. He’s pleaded silence and to remain silent, “No comment, no comment, no comment,” that was all he said, all the way through.

 

 

The driver. All he had to say was, “No comment, no comment, no comment.” My son chose law as a profession. A profession which he very much believed, and strongly believed, but he was never given a day in court, I was not given the opportunity, nor my barrister to question this young man, which I find very, very hard.

 

 

Death by dangerous driving because the devastation, with no license, no insurance, nothing at all, and these guys were literally speeding down the road. But sadly on the particular day there were no witnesses, no-one come forward. The only person that said that she saw something did, at the end of the day decided that “Well, I can’t remember.” And that’s it, so there was no statement.

 

Yes, a part of it, they came home on several occasions and kept us informed of what’s going to happen, with the inquest, the forthcoming inquest that was planned.

 

 

Well at home yes, they told me that the maximum this guy could get up to 14 years. We got to the Courts, the coroners court and the magistrate. Things have changed because of technicality. The step-father owner of the car told the police under caution that he did not give him permission, and changed his tune on legal advice and would not sign a witness statement. That way the police could not bring about a charge for aggravated vehicle taking, causing death, so he was charged with careless driving.

Absolutely, on advice from his solicitors. Yes.

 

 

We made an impact statement later, for the, for the magistrate.

 

 

Not for the inquest because we were not given the opportunity to say anything at the inquest.

 

 

The inquest took the most of about an hour, two hours if that.