The Coroners (Investigations) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
These Regulations amend the Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013 in order to reflect the changes to section 4 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (c. 25) that were made by section 39 of the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 (c. 35). The amendment to section 4 allows a coroner to discontinue an investigation where the cause of death becomes clear before inquest, whether this is revealed by post-mortem examination or by other information. Previously, when a coroner started an investigation, they could only discontinue the investigation if the results of a post-mortem examination revealed the cause of death. In practice this meant that, if the cause of death was revealed during the investigation from other sources of evidence, the investigation could only be concluded by a formal inquest, or by arranging an otherwise unnecessary post-mortem examination.