The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
two
additional Coroner’s Officers;
•
an
additional member of support staff; and
•
recording
equipment which would enable two extra courts to
operate
221.
There were
currently 59 inquests into the deaths of Service Personnel killed
in Iraq
and 11
inquests into the deaths of civilians to be concluded.
Mr Gardiner expected, with
this
additional support, to be able to conclude inquests into the deaths
of 30 Service
Personnel
where the MOD had completed their own inquiries and case papers had
been
prepared,
and conclude inquests into the deaths of three civilians where he
had been
provided
with reports and other information, by the end of the
year.
222.
Ms Harman
and Mr Browne undertook to report quarterly to Parliament
on
progress in
clearing the backlog of outstanding inquests.
223.
As the
Statement was being drafted, Ms Harman expressed her strong
view
that it
should be sent to the families of deceased Service Personnel before
it was laid
224.
DCA officials
advised that they were “not convinced” by that proposal,
and
that
it was in any case impractical as the MOD was “not prepared”
to supply family
225.
Ms Harman
and Mr Browne agreed on 1 June that the Statement should be
sent
to families
before it was laid in Parliament.132
226.
Two of the
three Assistant Deputy Coroners were appointed in early June, the
third
227.
The
effectiveness of the additional support provided to the Oxfordshire
Coroner’s
office in
clearing the outstanding inquests is considered below.
228.
In July, as
the capacity of the Oxfordshire Coroner’s office was being
increased,
the MOD
extended the target timelines for the completion of BOIs; that
decision is
described
earlier in this Section.
229.
By the end of
July, it had become clear that the MOD and DCA did not
have
a shared
understanding of how much, and at what point, the MOD would
contribute
to the cost
of the additional support provided to the Oxfordshire Coroner’s
office.
129
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 5 June
2006, column 4WS.
130
Email
Tierney to Woolfenden, Patterson & Bainbridge, 1 June 2006,
‘Writing to the Families’.
131
Minute
Bainbridge to Harman, 31 May 2006, ‘Oxon Coroner’.
132
Email
Tierney to Anderson, 1 June 2006, ‘Note of Telephone Call between
Harriet Harman
and
Des Browne – Iraq/Coroner’.
133
Minute DCA
[junior official] to Harman, 6 October 2006, ‘Oxfordshire Coroner:
Written Ministerial
Statement
on Progress with Iraq Related Inquest Backlog’.
116