Inquest Case Studies

A well managed case

Our client was the headteacher of a new-build comprehensive school. A child was killed in a road traffic collision on the school site. The school’s road layout created a dangerous area and a school minibus knocked down and killed the child as he ran to board another school bus. As a result of our careful advocacy and our marshalling of her evidence setting out the history of concerns being raised by the school with the local authority, our client was not criticised in the coroner’s summary of the case.

What can go wrong without representation

Our headteacher client faced very serious allegations before the Teaching Regulation Agency that arose in part from a coroner’s comments about his failure to safeguard a child who was subsequently killed by relatives. Other parties at the inquest had individual legal representation but he did not. The coroner placed most of the blame on him and, worse still, went on to state that our client had dishonestly covered-up the school’s failures. This was not the case, but this adverse finding had to be carefully unpicked over several days at the regulatory hearing. Whilst we were successful in that task, individual representation at the inquest would have brought out a more balanced picture and could have saved our client much anguish during the subsequent TRA hearing.