I’ve been reading the Daniel Morcombe coronial inquest report. He went missing in December 2003 and an inquest occurred at his parents request some 7 years later in October 2010. The inquest concluded in 2016.
I’m trying to determine in simple terms why coronial investigations and inquests vary in their timing. From what I can deduce, police investigate and when they have finished they
can (info is conflicting whether it’s compulsory or not) give a ’suspected death report’ to the coroner. If the coroner can’t find natural causes for the suspected death, they open a coronial investigation. The family can request an investigation too. The following is from the Morcombe inquest:
“Following submissions from the Morcombe family, the State Coroner formed the view that it was in the public interest that an inquest be held into Daniel’s disappearance.
The scope of an inquest and findings
A coroner has jurisdiction to inquire into the cause and the circumstances of a suspected death. The Coroners Act, in s 45(1) and (2), provides that when investigating a suspected death, the coroner must, if possible, find:-
whether the death happened, and if so,
the identity of the deceased,
how, when and where the death occurred, and what caused the death.
After considering all of the evidence presented at the inquest, findings must be given in relation to each of those matters to the extent that they are able to be proved. While this inquest commenced as an investigation into a suspected death, following Mr Cowan’s conviction for Daniel’s murder there is no doubt that he is deceased.
An inquest is not a trial between opposing parties but an inquiry into the death, which a leading English authority has described in this way:-
It is an inquisitorial process, a process of investigation quite unlike a criminal trial where the prosecutor accuses and the accused defends. The function of an inquest is to seek out and record as many of the facts concerning the death as the public interest requires.”
The focus is on discovering what happened, not on ascribing guilt, attributing blame or apportioning liability. The purpose is to inform the family and the public of how the death occurred with a view to reducing the likelihood of similar deaths. As a result, in so far as it is relevant to the death being investigated, the Act authorises a coroner to “comment on anything connected with a death investigated at an inquest that relates to public health or safety or ways to prevent deaths from happening in similar circumstances in the future.”
https://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/608476/cif-morcombe-d-20190405.pdf
