Coroner
Davison v HM Senior Coroner for Hertfordshire [2022] EWHC 2343 (Admin), [2022] All ER (D) 25 (Sep)
The Administrative Court, first, allowed the claim for an order, under s 13 of the Coroners Act 1988, to quash the defendant coroner’s conclusion that the claimant’s daughter had taken her own life. At the time of her death, the claimant’s daughter had been receiving outpatient treatment for her diabulimia, a rare eating disorder which causes people with type 1 diabetes to omit insulin, from one of the interested party’s consultant psychiatrists and its Community Eating Disorder Service. Among other things, the court held that the discovery of new evidence, a report by an expert in diabulimia (the report), had meant that it was necessary and desirable in the interests of justice for a fresh investigation to be held. The report had demonstrated that there was public interest in more being known about diabulimia, given that it had indicated that: (i) the condition was more widespread than commonly recognised; (ii) better coordination between different disciplines of treatment was required; and (iii) warning signs had
