Expert Witness Journal Issue 68 August 2026 - Flipbook - Page 83
proceeded on a false premise and was therefore
de昀椀cient. The task at the pre-inquest review is to
identify, with precision and credible material, the
speci昀椀c respect in which the branch’s investigation
was incomplete; a line of inquiry it never pursued,
a near-miss it failed to examine, an assumption it
never tested. Generalised dissatisfaction will fail. A
focused, evidenced challenge to a de昀椀ned gap is a
di昀昀erent matter.
setting where they cannot easily be revised later,
the operator’s documents are tested in public, and
the systemic picture begins to take shape, however
imperfectly the coronial conclusion re昀氀ects it.
In other words, the value of a proactively conducted
inquest is not measured solely by the verdict it
produces. A constrained conclusion can sit alongside
an evidential record that proves decisive once the
matter moves to a forum where the report enjoys no
special deference. Counsel who treat the inquest as
a dress rehearsal for the civil claim, using the preinquest review to de昀椀ne the de昀椀ciency arguments,
using questioning of the inspector to extract every
admissible fact, using the disclosure machinery to
its limit, do their clients a service that long outlasts
the inquest itself.
Second, the scope of an inquest and the reliability
of an accident-branch report are distinct questions.
A coroner retains a duty under sections 5 and 10 of
the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to ascertain how
the deceased came by their death, and in Article 2
cases, the broader circumstances. The RAIB’s noblame remit may simply not have covered matters
such as regulatory failure, managerial decisions,
the engagement of Article 2 that fall squarely within
the coronial function. Those are arguments about
jurisdiction and scope, not about second-guessing
the cause of derailment, and they sit outside the
Norfolk line.
The lesson of Sandilands is not despair. It is diligence.
Counsel and solicitors should treat the inquest as
the opening, not the close, of the accountability
process: press the scope arguments hard, build the
evidenced case on any genuine de昀椀ciency, extract
every admissible document, and carry that material
into the civil arena where the deference falls away.
The civil courts are a di昀昀erent country
Here lies the point families most need to hear. The
deference shown to accident-branch reports in the
coroner’s court does not travel into civil litigation.
In Rogers v Hoyle [2014] EWCA Civ 257, the Court of
Appeal con昀椀rmed that an AAIB report is admissible
as evidence in a negligence claim; admissible,
examinable, and open to challenge in the ordinary
way, with the court free to weigh it against other
evidence and reach its own conclusions on fault.
The civil court is not bound to treat the report as
conclusive, is not engaged in the “all or nothing”
exercise, and, crucially, is concerned with liability, the
very thing the branches are forbidden to determine.
The report becomes one piece of evidence among
many, to be cross-examined, contradicted and,
where appropriate, rejected, rather than a 昀椀nding
the tribunal must accept whole or not at all.
Mr. Thomas Sproston
Safety management practitioner, specialising
in high hazard products and processes
MEng (Hons) PGCert DipNCRQ
CEng MIMechE FSEng
Thomas is an experienced safety practitioner, with the bulk of this gained on safety and
reliability engineering on highly regulated applications. He has experience in identifying
hazards, assessing risks, specifying safety measures and associated operating
procedures plus safety justification across a wide variety of high hazard industries
(aerospace, automotive, nuclear, rail and maritime industries) and varying regulatory
regimen. He has a particular interest in managing safety in applications with difficult,
ambiguous or conflicting attributes (eg: multi-hazard trade-offs subject to Health and
Safety at Work Act 1974).
That contrast is precisely why the inquest, for all its
constraints, remains worthy arena to test your case.
The inquest is the 昀椀rst and often the only forum
in which the relevant material is brought into the
open under judicial supervision, on oath, and at
public expense. Even where a coroner feels bound
by the Norfolk line to treat the branch’s conclusions
as the cause of the accident, the inquest process
still surfaces the raw material from which a civil
claim is built. The supplementary factual evidence
an inspector may be asked to give, the documents
that can be prised from the branch by application
to the High Court, the disclosure of underlying
physical evidence, raw data, measurements and
expert technical reports that the RAIB will release
even when it will not act as an expert witness, all of
this is gold dust to the civil practitioner. Witnesses
are identi昀椀ed, accounts are pinned down in a
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
He is also qualified to provide more conventional ‘Health and Safety’ and Fire risk
consultancy to firms operating in lesser regulatory regimes (by lieu of an NCRQ Diploma
and other qualifications) and is a certified Functional Safety Engineer for Safety
Instrumented Systems, in addition to carrying Chartered and European Engineer statuses.
Expert witness work in the following areas;
• Fire risk management strategy
• Fire risk assessments
• Occupational safety management strategy
• Occupational risk assessments
• Adequacy of occupational safety arrangements
• Safety engineering - integrity level specification and validation, quantitative and
qualitative risk analysis
• Safety Instrumented System Specification, Design and Implementation iaw BS EN
61508
• Reliability modelling, monitoring and improvement
• Product functional design to achieve safety requirements
Contact:
Mobile: 07476 245 559
Email: tom@westleylansdowne.co.uk
Website: www.westleylansdowne.co.uk
Unit 16 Premier Drum Works, Canal Street,
Wigston Magna, Leicestershire, LE18 4PL
81
AUGUST 2026
