HM Senior Coroner for Cornwall and the Scilly Isles
[2024] EWHC 2673 (Admin)
Mid and West Wales Fire & Rescue Service, R (on the application of) v HM Acting Senior Coroner for Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire
12 July 2023
[2023] EWHC 1669 (Admin)
High Court
A firefighter died in a boat accident. Investigators made a report. The coroner said the report was good enough. The fire department sued, saying the report was bad. The judge said the report was fine, and the fire department lost.
Key Facts
- •Joshua Gardener, a firefighter, died in a collision between two fire service boats during a training exercise.
- •The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) investigated and produced a report.
- •The coroner ruled that the MAIB report's findings on the accident's cause were conclusive evidence.
- •The Mid and West Wales Fire & Rescue Service (Claimant) challenged this decision via judicial review.
- •The Claimant argued the MAIB investigation was flawed and sought to challenge the report's conclusions at the inquest.
Legal Principles
In the absence of credible evidence that an Accident Investigation Branch's investigation is incomplete, flawed, or deficient, a coroner should not reinvestigate matters covered by the report.
R (Secretary of State) v HM Senior Coroner for Norfolk & another [2016] EWHC 2279 (Admin); HM Senior Coroner for West Sussex v Chief Constable of Sussex Police & others [2022] EWHC 215 (QB)
Coroners have a duty to conduct a full, fair, and fearless investigation, but this does not override the principle of avoiding unnecessary duplication of investigations by expert bodies.
R v HM Coroner for North Humberside and Scunthorpe ex parte Jamieson [1995] 1 QB 1; Mahon v Air New Zealand Ltd [1984] 1 AC 808; R (Hambleton & others) v Coroner for the Birmingham Inquests [2019] 1 WLR 3417
The sole objective of a MAIB investigation is accident prevention through identifying causes and circumstances; it is not to determine liability.
Merchant Shipping (Accident Reporting and Investigation) Regulations 2012, regulation 5
The Workboat Code applies to the Claimant's boats.
Merchant Shipping Act 1995, s85(1)(a); Merchant Shipping (Small Workboats and Pilot Boats) Regulations 1998; Merchant Shipping (Vessels in Commercial Use for Sport or Pleasure) Regulations 1998
Outcomes
The claim was dismissed.
The court found that the coroner correctly applied the legal test from Norfolk and West Sussex, and that there was no credible evidence that the MAIB investigation was incomplete, flawed, or deficient. The Claimant's arguments regarding the applicability of the Workboat Code and other procedural challenges were also rejected.
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