The Law Show11 Kesä 2025

How can avoidable deaths be prevented?

The phrase “State related deaths” might mean little to the average person, but it's an umbrella term referring to a death in custody or a mental health setting. It also applies to situations when people have taken their own lives while in the armed forces or even to disasters like Grenfell or Hillsborough.

What all these have in common is that they are followed by inquests or public inquiries, where investigators or coroners try to work out what caused the deaths.

Public inquiries are set up to draw conclusions and release their findings, and coroners are required to write a "Prevention of Future Deaths" report when there are lessons to be learned.

Hundreds of these PFD reports are released in England and Wales each year - yet there is no system in place to ensure preventative changes are made.

In Scotland, the equivalent is a Fatal Accident Inquiry. It's held by a procurator fiscal - and not a coroner - in front of a sheriff, and has a wider remit than an inquest. It too, can flag up systemic failures that led to a death, and precautions that should be made in future.

So should the UK have a body that ensures these warnings are heeded?

Also on the programme: The government has welcomed Law Commission reforms to Wills - which includes new protections against so-called "predatory marriages". And the Supreme Court case which could change the rules for all divorces in England and Wales.

Presenter: Joelle Grogan Producers: Ravi Naik and Charlotte Rowles Editor: Tara McDermott

Contributors: Deborah Coles, Director of the charity Inquest Kate Stone, barrister at Garden Court North chambers Alexander Learmonth KC, barrister at New Square chambers Tracey Moloney, Moloney Family solicitors

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