We welcome the Jury’s findings and feel they got a real sense of who Jessie was, of all her difficulties, and the fight as parents that we have had with health services and East Sussex County Council, since 2016. Jessie was often misunderstood and badly treated since she was 14. This added layers of traumatic […]
The coroner called the jury back to court shortly before 5pm to see what position they were in and how much more time they thought they needed for deliberations. Coroner: Members of the jury I wonder if the foreman or forelady could stand please They do Coroner: Members of the jury you’ve now been deliberating […]
Before lunch on Day 9 the coroner summed up the evidence in Jessie’s inquest. She explained to the jury what their role entailed, what findings they needed to make and talked them through the record of inquest. The coroner told the jury that their findings must be based solely on what they heard in court […]
The jury came into court at 11am on Day 9 of Jessie’s inquest, on Friday 1 December. The coroner apologised for keeping them waiting and told them that they would hear some further evidence, following which they would retire to consider, after she had summed up all the evidence to them. The coroner said that […]
The final witness on Day 8 was the coroner’s expert, Dr Elizabeth Beber, who attended the court remotely. She gave an affirmation and confirmed she could hear. This post discusses Jessie’s death and has a little more detail than I would normally report about self-harming, I’ve withheld lots of detail, but had to include some […]
I just want to start this post with a thank you to those who fund my reporting, it wouldn’t happen without them. All of my court work is funded by crowdsourced financial support, I have no employer or organisational support for it. If you’d care to support my reporting you can do so here, thank […]
The day started with the coroner apologising for keeping the jury waiting. She said that they would deal with the police evidence now, which would be read to them. She also told the jury that Interested Persons had agreed that it was not necessary to read out the GP’s Summary as they’ve heard from various […]
In the afternoon of Day 6 the court heard from two witnesses, both in person. The first witness, Dr Makin was very softly spoken and became upset on an occasion (which often leads to witnesses dropping their voices even further). As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t tend to add trigger warnings to my posts, because […]
The final witness before lunch on Day 6 was Ruth Nathan. Asked to give her full name and professional status, she did so and told the court that she’s a senior social worker. Coroner: OK, you indicated that you’re a Senior Social Worker, how long have you been in that role? RN: Just a couple […]
On the morning of Day 6 the coroner asked her Coroner’s Officer to read the statement of Simon Hellyer onto the record. I was not able to catch all of it, but report what I did catch below. This is as good a time as any to remind people that I am contemporaneously reporting Jessie’s […]