Paul Reynolds

Inquests & Public Inquiries

Paul has a long experience of representing a wide range of interested person/core participants at inquests and public inquiries respectively, as well as experience of being Counsel to the Coroner in inquests and Counsel to the Inquiry.  He has also acted in a number of sui generis statutory inquiries relating to, for example, tolls that may be charged by a ferry company incorporated by statute.

Paul is very experienced in a wide range of inquest contexts  including, deaths in custody or while under Mental Health Act orders, deaths arising out of transport accidents involving aircraft, trains and boats, and all kinds of clinical negligence cases. He represented the full spectrum of interested persons including bereaved families, hospital trusts, GPs, individual doctors (particularly surgeons), government bodies and departments and other interested persons. Below are some examples:

Selected Cases

• Junior Counsel to the Coroner in the Hillsborough Inquests (led by Christina Lambert KC, now Mrs Justice Lambert DBE) for a period of three years.
• Junior Council to the IICSA inquiry.
• Successfully represented bereaved family in a complex cardiology inquest involving out of hours services, imaging, and specialist interventional radiology, resulting in the conclusion that the Deceased would have survived with the appropriate care, despite this involving an emergency transfer to a different specialist hospital.
• Successfully represented bereaved family in a jury inquest involving the Deceased taking his life while under a Mental Health Act order, with a complex set up in which psychiatry services where contracted out to a separate organisation from the mental health hospital.
• Successfully represented vascular surgeon who was performing an innovative technique, using a newly released device, to treat an aortic aneurysm during which the medical device malfunctioned leading to occlusion of the aorta.
• Representing the Marine Accident Investigation Branch in an inquest involving the death of a fireman during a routine training exercise on board a Fire and Rescue service vessel.
• Acted for family of a patient who died as a result of choking, in which the jury made a series of very critical findings regarding patient care.
• Acted for the family of a man who committed suicide whilst a patient in a psychiatric hospital, in which the jury concluded that a failure to increase observations had contributed to the death.
• Acted for a consultant vascular surgeon in an inquest where a man had died during elective surgery following the use of an innovative technique to treat an aortic aneurysm. Despite the SUI report criticising the surgeon, the Coroner’s conclusions made no such criticism.
• Acted for an NHS Trust in a case where a psychiatric inpatient died of a heart attack, and there were concerns about the attention his medical health had received. The jury made no criticisms of the NHS Trusts.