Coroners and Justice Bill

The amendment concerns the death of a minor and the possibility of excluding the press from an inquest. We have a charter for the bereaved. In 1971, the Brodrick committee on death certificates and coroners recommended that the coroner needed discretion to hold an inquest in private and to balance public interest against private grief. The grieving process after suicide, especially when the death has been of a young person, is often different in nature from the grief after other causes of death. The fact that the loved one’s death involved an element of choice raises painful questions that do not necessarily arise when the death has been from natural or accidental causes. The grieving is characterised by agonising questions and a search for some explanation of what happened. Those bereaved often feel a strong sense of guilt—indeed, abandonment—and rejection. Legal processes can make this worse, particularly when there are delays in an inquest and communication with the coroner’s office is difficult. Giving evidence and public reporting have been shown in studies by Biddle and Wertheimer to be particularly problematic. The feeling of guilt is worsened by questioning in public, and the process can induce stigma and shame. These are worsened by public reporting of highly personal information. In 2006, the Coroners Bill, published in draft, contained new powers for coroners to impose anonymity in any case where the coroner believed there to be no public interest in the names of families being made public. Consultation on this covered adult and child deaths, so it is understandable that on balance it was not pursued, because it might raise an unfair expectation among families when it should be used only in exceptional cases. The Press Complaints Commission code of practice has also been amended since that time and now includes an important provision to avoid intrusion into grief and shock. The Bill helpfully has provision in Clause 36(3)(b) for witnesses under 18 to give evidence in private to try to lessen the ordeal and to improve the evidence that they give. I am sure that everyone will welcome that. It also provides for a person’s name to be withheld under the coroner’s direction, as specified in Clause 36(2)(e). In a letter to Madeleine Moon MP on 23 March 2009, the Minister in the other place, Bridget Prentice, described the provision as applying when it is needed to protect that person’s safety. Therefore, it would mainly apply during inquests into the deaths of UK Special Forces personnel or when witnesses and bereaved families need to remain anonymous to protect their safety. Of course, on the other side of the coin, many families want to expose the horror of the death—for example, after carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty gas appliance, where there has been a failure to diagnose a life-threatening condition or where there is a question of culpability. Where families wish to talk to the press, they should of course be allowed to do so. What I am asking for is consideration for the surviving siblings of the deceased. They have feelings of culpability, and possibly even inadvertent complicity, in the death, which can be even more acute than in more adult members of the family. For example, they may think, "If only I had not gone out", "If only I had told Mum about that remark made in confidence", "If only I had asked who the internet friends were", and so on. At school, the child can be subject to desperately cruel remarks, sometimes from other children repeating comments overheard at home, such as, "They’re a strange family", or, "They blame the mother". These can be inferred from reading newspaper reports, often in the local paper, which provide details within the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct. Sadly, our experience in Bridgend, before the code of conduct was amended, was that some statements appeared in the press that had not been made at all. There had been a misinterpretation in the reporting. This caused enormous distress to families. I do not suggest that the press are breaching the new code; they are not. We had bad experiences previously, but press reporting seems to have improved. However, we have seen friends of a dead teenager goaded to disclose details about the deceased or to supply a photograph. Sometimes the first time the bereaved see the picture is when it appears in the papers. The grieving relatives of a suicide victim are themselves at increased risk of suicide. The Children and Young Persons Act 1933 gives coroners the power to prohibit publication in newspapers of the name of a child in relation to inquests. This appears to be limited to living children and does not apply to the name of the dead child, yet the sibling is of course easily identified because they usually share the same surname and, in a small community, they are often known to have been at the same school. In 2008, one in five of the 4,698 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission related to intrusion into privacy. In the experience of Bridgend, PAPYRUS—a UK charity committed to the prevention of young suicides—found that, ""judgment by many journalists was based on their personal reaction to news, revealing a lack of understanding that vulnerable young people could become severely distressed, suicidal even, by reading that another young person had killed themselves"." A crucial aspect of modern reporting is that news is now on the internet immediately and is archived, effectively becoming available for ever. Bereavement for any child is a cruel wake-up call to the cold realities that lie beyond childhood years. It is like a rapid removal of the comfort blanket beautifully hemmed with childlike ideals. Sadly, there are some realities that we cannot shield our children from, but exacerbating and compounding their grief when their siblings die is something that we can and should think about preventing. I believe that it should be a priority. The purpose of my amendment is to allow the grieving family to be given a choice and the coroner to have the power to do this. I am not saying that inquests on all children should normally be held in private and I hope that I have explained adequately the purpose of my amendment. I beg to move.