Can I request evidence?

You have the right to full disclosure of all the relevant documents held by the Coroner. You also have the right to request any evidence (otherwise known as disclosure) you feel is relevant to the inquest that hasn’t already been requested by the Coroner. 

You can request evidence already obtained by the coroner, from from the Coroner's Officer. Prior to the inquest the coroner should provide you with a final 'inquest bundle' which contains all of the relevant documents and evidence to be considered at the inquest. 

Once received, you may want to review the evidence in order to see if anything is missing. It can be upsetting to read through evidence relating to a loved one's death. If you have requested evidence from the coroner, please prepared to receive distressing material such as statements from those who had contact with your loved one before they died or from those involved in their care or treatment.

Once you have received disclosure, you can go through it in order to narrow down or identify the relevant issues, e.g. risk assessments, care plans, ACCT, discharge.

Note: if you received disclosure late and do not have the time to review, you can request an adjournment. Please see our factsheet dealing with requests for an adjournment. 

Outstanding evidence

You may find it helpful to create an action list focused on identifying all evidence available from all possible sources e.g. Records or minutes taken at a discharge meeting or CCTV footage from police cell.

Once the list is completed you can send a request for the evidence to the Coroner so they can request it from the relevant Interested Party.

Other resources

The charity Advocate also offers to review documents in preparation for the inquest. You can contact them directly regarding this.