On Tuesday, 16 April 2013, David Heming, the Senior Coroner for Peterborough, opened the inquests on Slaboszewski, Chapman and Lee, then immediately adjourned until Monday, 19 May.
As Heming explained to this author: ‘Dear Christopher, I literally opened the inquest for ID evidence and provisional cause of death, and suspended it (the power now contained in Schedule 1, para 2 Coroners’ and Justice Act 2009). I then issued “Form 121”, which is a document indicating that the inquest would not be resumed.’
For a little medico-legal background there is some dispute over the exact date of origin of the English office of coroner, and, although the first mention of the modern equivalent dates from an ordinance of 1194, requiring every shire to elect an officer to ‘keep the pleas of the Crown’, it is reliably thought that as a Crown office it was first instituted following the Norman conquest, and when murdrum/murder was introduced.
The De Officia Coronatoris, a stature of 1276, enumerated the Coroner’s duties and obligations. The Coroner – then called ‘The Crowner’, his full title being custos placitorum coronae, or keeper of the King’s pleas, suits, or causes, was so-called because his special duty was to keep pleas, suits or causes which more particularly affected the King’s Crown and dignity, and were determined either by the King in person or by his immediate officers.
As one of the King’s officers – and a poorly paid job it was, too – his function was not so much to hear and determine causes as to keep a record of all that went on in the county in any way connected with the administration of criminal justice and, above all, to guard what may be called chance revenues falling to the King. The collection of such revenues depended to a great extent on the diligence of the Coroner in seeking for such things as the forfeited chattels of felons, deodands (a thing that had caused a person’s death and was forfeited to the Crown for a charitable purpose, meaning ‘something to be given to God’: abolished 1862), wrecks, royal fish and treasure-trove.
So, if you are caught pillaging a wreck, stealing fish from the Crown’s estate, shooting a swan or looting a field of Roman god coins expect to be hauled before the Coroner.
In his early days the chief functions of the ‘Crowner’ while guarding the King’s revenues were the holding of inquests on view of the body in cases of death due to violence or accident and those dying in prison. Following the 1926 Coroners (Amendment) Act a person is only eligible for appointment if he/she is a solicitor, barrister or a medical practitioner of five years or more experience. In practice most posts are held by solicitors, and apart from in cities and large towns, the appointments are part-time. Full-time coroners are usually qualified in medicine and the law, and their appointment is for life.
According to Mr F. G. Hails, former Coroner for the City of Stoke-on-Trent: ‘The office of coroner in England has been adapted to keep pace with the legal machinery and needs of the times, and it is probably now the most effective machine of medico-legal investigation to be found in the world.’