The High Court has ruled that the Coroner for Sligo and Leitrim wrongly relied on the Coroners Act and the European Convention on Human Rights to refuse a request for evidence concerning the death of James Loughlin. The court said the family was entitled to pursue that line of inquiry for the inquest.
Michael and Paula Loughlin’s son died on 24 February 2018 after a violent assault by a third party who was charged with his murder and was awaiting trial when the judgment was delivered. The applicants believed the third party had a history of mental illness and violence, and that he had recently been discharged from a psychiatric facility. Those were the family’s beliefs and reported rumours, not findings by the court.
The family asked the coroner to seek the third party’s medical records. In correspondence, the coroner initially said the person was a potential witness and that obtaining psychiatric history was not appropriate. He later relied on section 30 of the Coroners Act, which confines an inquest to establishing the deceased’s identity and how, when and where the death occurred, without deciding civil or criminal liability. He also argued that a wider inquiry was unwarranted because Article 2 of the Convention was not engaged.
The judge said section 30 does not prevent an inquest from examining the circumstances surrounding a death, even where the evidence might also matter in civil or criminal proceedings. An inquest may not determine liability, but it can investigate a broad range of circumstances. The family’s proposed inquiry was legitimate, the judge said, and it would be unfairly hindered without access to the evidence sought. He noted that the coroner’s counsel no longer relied on section 30 at the hearing.
The judge also rejected the coroner’s interpretation of Article 2, finding that it did not restrict the scope of an inquest under domestic law. The coroner abandoned the reasons stated in his correspondence during the hearing.
The coroner additionally argued that the case was premature because criminal proceedings were pending and because he had not made a final decision. The judge rejected both arguments. The family sought evidence in preparation for the eventual inquest, not an inquest before the criminal trial. The judge also found that the coroner had expressed clear conclusions in correspondence and had not treated them as provisional.
The court concluded that the applicants were entitled to relief. It did not specify the order in this judgment, stating that it would discuss the appropriate form of relief with counsel.