AC-2024-LON-003241 - [2025] EWHC 3014 (Admin)

Fecha: 17-Nov-2025

Article 2 inquests

Article 2 inquests

15.

The ECHR right which arises in this context is Article 2:

“Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which the penalty is provided by law”.

Inquests in which Article 2 issues arise are understandably referred to as “Article 2 inquests”. Inquests which do not engage the wider enquiry contemplated by s.5(2) of the 2009 Act are frequently referred to as Jamieson inquests (after R (HM Coroner for North Humberside and Scunthorpe) ex parte Jamieson [1995] QB 1).

16.

Article 2 has a number of elements, which are discussed in R (Skelton) v West Sussex Senior Coroner [2020] EWHC 2813 (Admin), [50]-[63]. For present purposes it is sufficient to distinguish:

Its procedural element: this imposes a duty of enhanced investigation, to initiate an effective public investigation by an independent official body into any death occurring in circumstances in which it appears that a substantive obligation has been or may have been violated, and it appears that agents of the state are, or may be, implicated in some way. That duty is addressed in s.5(2) of the 2009 Act.

ii)

Its substantive element: the substantive duty to protect life, which includes an obligation on the state to establish a framework of laws, precautions, procedures and means of enforcement which will to the greatest extent reasonably practicable do so but also in certain circumstances an operational duty to take positive preventative measures to protect life.

17.

The content of that substantive duty in the present context was established by the European Court of Human Rights in Osman v United Kingdom (1998) 29 EHRR 245, [116]:

“It must be established to its satisfaction that the authorities knew or ought to have known at the time of the existence of a real and immediate risk to the life of an identified individual or individuals from the criminal acts of a third party and that they failed to take measures within the scope of their powers which, judged reasonably, might have been expected to avoid that risk.”

18.

It will be noted that there are the following elements to the Article 2 breach Osman formulates:

The authorities “knew or ought to have known at the time of the existence of a real and immediate risk to the life of an identified individual or individuals from the criminal acts of a third party.”

ii)

That they “failed to take measures within the scope of their powers which, judged reasonably, might have been expected to avoid that risk.”