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

In a conventional appeal to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division against a decision by a trial judge to terminate a case because there is no case to answer, the Court of Appeal adopts the approach in R v B [2008] EWCA Crim 1144, [19]:

“When the judge has exercised his discretion or made his judgment for the purposes of and in the course of a criminal trial, the very fact that he has had carefully to balance conflicting considerations will almost inevitably mean that he might reasonably have reached a different, or the opposite conclusion to the one he did reach. Leave to appeal … will not be given by this court unless it is seriously arguable, not that the discretionary jurisdiction might have been exercised differently, but that it was unreasonable for it to have been exercised in the way that it was.”

Where, however, a challenge is brought in public law to the decision of a coroner to leave or not to leave an issue to the coroner’s jury, the burden faced by the party bringing that challenge is altogether higher. The basis on which such a decision can be challenged is summarised in R v HM Corner for Exeter and East Devon ex parte Palmer [2000] Inquest LR 78:

“The first is whether there is a mistake of law. If the deciding body has made a mistake of law, then the courts can intervene to correct that mistake. Second, they can intervene if the body making the decision has failed to take into account a consideration which they are required to take into account, or has taken into account a consideration which they are not entitled to take into account. Thirdly, applying the test to a Coroner, the courts can do so where a Coroner has acted in such a way which no reasonable Coroner would act, having properly directed himself as to the law.

…

[T]he Coroner has to make decisions where he has a broad discretion. Where he has a discretion, then the court … should not intervene except on Wednesbury grounds. We have no jurisdiction to act as a Court of Appeal in relation to decisions of Coroners.”

The application of conventional public law principles to this latter question is confirmed by R (Glaister and Carr) v His Majesty’s Assistant Coroner for North Wales (East and Central) [2025] EWHC 167 (Admin), [27] and [55].