I do remember I was aware of INQUEST because they were doing important work at a time when people, families, friends, relatives who had to attend inquests were disregarded by the system. They might turn up and the coroner wouldn’t even recognise they’re sitting in court and would not talk to them and all the rest of it. That changed, but that’s how it was when I began. So that’s how the courts would do it, and furthermore, you know, the families were not getting any advice from anybody, lawyers were rare because there was no legal aid.
The powers that be, including Lord Denning said, you know, basically we’re not going to spend public money on issues to do with dead people, which was all pretty disgusting as well, I thought. So I was very supportive of the work they were doing and I was aware of cases that were linked to INQUEST, but it was a defuse situation because I was getting the cases through solicitors who would come and say, you know, would you do this case, then I’d find INQUEST had been involved at some stage, had referred this person to that solicitor who was prepared to do it. And then we were doing it pro bono, basically.
And I think nearly all of them were pro bono, except for ex gratia payment cases where it was of such public importance that the Lord Chancellor’s department decided to cough up some money to pay, but they were the rarities. And so I think- and of course, the need of a family at that point, and it’s one thing when you’re in the dock facing a criminal charge, that’s one problem, but here it’s a family who’ve done nothing other than suffer the deprivation of a life, whether it’s a husband or a father, brother, sister, whatever.
And so they’ve been through a terrible shocking situation, usually sudden, usually not foreseen, because suicides often are kept under wraps by the person wanting to commit it, they don’t want any interference, so they lull you into a sense of false security, and so this is a family who’ve been, you know, really put on the edge and INQUEST steps in at that point, or did do, and still does, and I think that’s how I got to know them. And at some point Deborah turned up at these hearings, you know, and I’d get to know her and we’d talk.
And the important thing for me with INQUEST was obviously the work they did, but was the fact that you had an organisation that was interested in not just the individual case but the whole matrix of what was going on, and they would make submissions to government about needs to improving the system and representation. So they’ve been a very powerful force politically as well as individually.
