High Court confirms three fresh inquests in Gosport War Memorial Hospital case

The High Court has today confirmed that three fresh inquests will take place into the deaths of Arthur Denis Brian Cunningham, Gladys Mabel Richards and Robert Wilson who all died at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire in 1998.
 
Inquests were originally held into Gladys’ death in April 2013 and into Brian and Robert’s death in March and April 2009. Following the publication of the Gosport Independent Panel report in 2018 the families of Arthur, Gladys and Robert felt that fresh inquests were needed to examine the evidence uncovered in the report
 
The High Court agreed with the families, quashing the previous inquests.
 
In 2018 the Gosport Independent Panel report concluded that the lives of more than 450 people had been shortened because of the routine practice of prescribing and administering opioids until the year 2000, and that probably at least another 200 patients were similarly affected.
 
The three families, who are represented by partner Emma Jones of law firm Leigh Day, applied to the Attorney General in 2020 for a fiat which gives permission for them to make an application to the High Court for new inquests to be held and previous inquests to be quashed. The court agreed that it was necessary and desirable in the interests of justice that there be fresh inquests.
 
Ms Jones is also representing the families of six other people who died at Gosport Hospital, who have been successful in securing inquests into their deaths. These deaths had never been examined by a coroner previously. The inquests were opened by Coroner Christopher Wilkinson so and immediately adjourned pending the outcome of Operation Magenta, the Kent and Essex police investigation that opened in 2019.
 
Following the confirmation by the court today of the three fresh inquests, it is expected that the next steps will be that these inquests are assigned to a senior coroner who has had no prior involvement in these matters.
 
The families all hope that the inquests will be held all together as an Article 2 inquest with a much wider scope than a standard inquest to look at the role of all individuals and institutions involved and that a judge and jury are appointed, rather than it being conducted by a coroner.
 
Emma Jones, partner at law firm Leigh Day, said:
 
“We are pleased that these three fresh inquests have now been confirmed and the court has agreed with the families that the initial inquests were inadequate and that new inquests are needed to examine all the evidence that has since come to light about the use of opioids at Gosport War Memorial Hospital between 1987 and 2001. We are representing the families of nine people whose deaths will be freshly examined by a coroner to try to find answers about what went wrong at the hospital. But we know there are many more deaths that have not been properly examined and the families we represent remain determined that a Hillsborough-style public inquiry should be opened into all the deaths linked to opiod misuse at Gosport Hospital, which I believe is one of the biggest NHS scandals of our time.”