My Lords, I have given evidence at numerous criminal trials, in the magistrates’ court and the Crown Court, but the most vicious, adversarial cross-examination was at the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian shot and killed by the police following the 7 July 2005 bombings. There is no way that process could have
been described as inquisitorial. Indeed, part way through that proceeding, the coroner had to advise the barrister representing the police not to proceed in the way that he had up until that point. While in some cases it may be simply a neutral, inquisitorial search for the truth, that is not how a lot of inquests turn out.