POWERS OF CORONERS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 9

POWERS OF CORONERS

THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE

OPINIONS AT HOME

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON", 18th October.

During tho'enquiry into the death of Alfred Oliver, the Beading tobacconist, Mr. Philip Yale Drew, the American'actejr, -was subjected to crossexamination of such a nature as to call forth renewed protests regarding the powers of a coroner, and the latitude they are allowed in the matter of calling witnesses and taking evidence. Mr. J. L. Martin, who conducted the Oliver inquest, said in an interveiw:—"As a coroner I prefer to be left to confine my enquiry merely to the cause of death. It is, however, wrong on the part of the public to suggest that I or any other coroner in this country desire to give up a week to investigate cases of this kind —especially part-time coroners. I have in this case given up a week's holiday to the enquiry. It is up to the Government to take such action in this matter as they think desirable. I feel sure that all . coroners in England and Wales would be grateful if their powers were more definitely defined. It is the desire of every coroner to assist the police in their investigations, but, as there has been so much criticism of the present system, it is up to the iGovernment or to the State to legislate as they may think fit."

, Mr. W. Marshall Freman, Kecorder of Stamford, in an interview with a Press representative said:—"The Coroner's Court seems of late to have been used for the purpose of having suspected persons cross-examined on oath. Thii involves a grave departure from the accepted principles governing the administration of our criminal law. It may have arisen as a result of the views recently expressed by a Royal Commission as to 'third degree' procedure. The business of a Coroner's Court should bo limited to pronouncing the cause of •.death.

■ "It may be," he said, "that the cause cf.justice requires some new procedure by which suspected persons can be called on to give an a. aunt of their movements and doings at a particular time. Should this be found to be nocessary at should be carried out in private in the presence of a stipendiary magistrate and the suspected person's legal adviser, and without cross-examination." THE "CREWE" CASE. ' • "A case often quoted as the 'Crewe' case illustrates the Coroner's duty in assisting the police," said a London coroner. "The case developed into a murder trial, and the Judge severely reproved the coroner for not having taken all evidence possible to assist the police. It should be remembered in criticising the coroner's power to put any questions he likes that an inquest is not a trial, and no person stands accused of crime. An inquest," he add,ed, "is merely an enquiry in which the coroner is bound to use every endeavour to ascertain the cause of death, and any person's culpability in the matter." "A Coroner's Court is not a court for the trial of v. man," says the "Daily Chronic'i" in a leading article. "Yet in effect it resolved itself in this case into a court for trying Mr. Drew. "It was not qualified for any such task.- A coroner is not selected and appointed for the grave legal dut!-s which fall to a judge. The rules of procedure in his "court are not those applied in a cour* of law. There were glaring examples, in this case, of the admission of evidence which would never have been allowed in a trial; and counsel for the defence was denied certain privileges which would have been his by right in a court of law. A person who has been subjected to a sort of mock trial of this character emerges from it with a mass of prejudice clinging round his case which— should he be subjected to a subsequent legal trial—would make it harder for a jury to give a dispassionate verdict" The coroner, says the "Evening Standard," "has his duties to perform, and one of these, where murder has been committed, is to discover, if possible, the identity of the murderer. Nor can the police bo blamed; in their endeavour to obtain information they must use all the methods which the law permits. But the faults of the system are now so apparent that there ought to be no delay in remedying them."