[2001] EWHC Admin 352

A coroner need not leave all possible verdicts to a jury, it was sufficient for him to leave those verdicts which realistically reflected the thrust of the evidence as a whole, and on that basis he could not be criticised for not leaving a particular verdict to the jury. The European Court jurisprudence required a modest adjustment of the Gough test. The court must first ascertain all the circumstances that had a bearing on the suggestion of bias and it must then ask whether those circumstances would lead a fair-minded and informed observer to conclude that there was a real possibility, or a real danger, the two being the same, that the tribunal was biased.

QBD (Admin) (Jackson J)

09/04/2001