Expert Insights

Expert Insights

The Expert Insights available here are authored by individuals with wide-ranging knowledge and expertise relating to the coronial process. Among these contributions is Derek Winter’s reflections on his two decades’ experience of serving the people of Sunderland as Senior Coroner (for the last five years of which he has also been Deputy Chief Coroner). Inquest lawyer Merry Varney writes of the ‘incredible privilege’ of representing bereaved families through an inquest process which, too often, feels like a ‘battleground’ in which they must fight for full and fair outcomes. From the perspective of a bereaved family member, Jane Shackman has contributed a piece about her experience of the coronial process and the unanticipated positive repercussions of taking part in the Voicing Loss research. 

Based on both her academic interest and her personal experiences of the coronial process, Nicola Padfield – University of Cambridge Emeritus Professor – describes inquests as a ‘clunky tool’ for deriving learning from tragedies. Also with a focus on (potential) learning from inquests, Dr Georgia Richards writes about the Preventable Deaths Tracker, which she launched in 2020 as a unique database to collate and analyse coroners’ Prevention of Future Deaths reports. Technological change is the subject of the contribution by Australian academic Dr Marc Trabsky, who is researching the impacts of post-mortem computed tomography (PMCT) on coronial investigations.

Many other Expert Insights offer further important and diverse perspectives. Together, these pieces are a valuable complement to the Voicing Loss findings. It should be noted that the authors are responsible for the content of their respective pieces, and that this content does not necessarily reflect the views of the Voicing Loss research team.

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