Hearing transcripts

23 June 2010 - Morning session

1 Wednesday, 23 June 2010
2 (10.30 am)
3 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Yes, Mr Keith?
4 MR KEITH: Good morning, madam.
5 Madam, subject to your approval, I do not propose to
6 read out or to provide you with a list of the legal
7 representatives here this morning. Many of them, if not
8 all, will be familiar to you from the last occasion.
9 Submissions re 21 May ruling
10 Madam, may I commence with a matter to which
11 reference is not, in fact, made on the agenda, which is
12 no doubt in the forefront of everybody's minds which is
13 the question of whether or not any party intends to
14 challenge your ruling of 21 May. Madam, you will recall
15 that at paragraph 22 of your ruling you urged any party
16 thinking of challenging you to do so as a matter of
17 urgency, to consider doing so as a matter of urgency and
18 to inform you within two weeks of their position,
19 effectively by 4 June.
20 On 25 May, a few days later, the Treasury Solicitor
21 wrote to Mr Smith asking for a further week to Friday,
22 11 June, and requested him to pass that application on
23 to yourself and, as you will recall, they were granted
24 that further week.
25 Subsequently, on 4 June, in accordance with your

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1 request, all those parties who might reasonably have
2 been considered to have a view as to whether or not they
3 would challenge you all indicated that they had no
4 present intention to commence judicial review
5 proceedings but, understandably, they wished to reserve
6 their position in the light of any decision made by the
7 Secretary of State on behalf of the Security Service.
8 Then, on 11 June, the date on which their extension
9 expired, that is to say the one-week extension that they
10 had been granted from 4 June, the Treasury Solicitor
11 wrote to Mr Smith again acknowledging that they had made
12 a serious mistake because they had erroneously believed
13 that they had an extension, in fact, to the following
14 week on account of the letter which Mr Smith had written
15 to all the parties in relation to the quite separate
16 issue of the disclosure process and the practical steps
17 that you had ordered be put in place.
18 Mr Smith responded to the letter, pointing out,
19 quite correctly, of course, that they had acknowledged
20 themselves that they had made a serious mistake and
21 expressing his surprise that they could have believed
22 that 18 June was the final date to indicate their
23 position to you, given that they had themselves asked
24 for the original extension of one week to 11 June.
25 Mr Hall is in attendance before you today and will

2

1 no doubt explain how that position came about and what
2 the Secretary of State intends to do.
3 In the light of the fact that he is here and will no
4 doubt address you on those subjects, it is perhaps
5 appropriate that I say no more at this stage, but of
6 course remain available to address you in relation to
7 any matter that you feel should be addressed by myself
8 in the light of what he has to say.
9 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Keith, I think this is such an
10 important matter, we need to pause here and hear from
11 Mr Hall.
12 MR KEITH: By all means.
13 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Yes, Mr Hall?
14 MR HALL: Madam, what you will want to know is when the
15 Secretary of State will reach a decision.
16 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I do.
17 MR HALL: There are two separate matters that are being
18 considered. Firstly, whether to challenge by judicial
19 review your ruling on scope, and I should add that my
20 clients are considering that which is within all
21 reasonable alternatives in preference to a legal
22 challenge, which they see very much as a last resort.
23 So that's the first decision.
24 The second decision is whether, given the
25 difficulties of dealing with the extremely sensitive

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1 material which Mr Garnham outlined to you in the April
2 hearings, the Lord Chancellor should exercise his powers
3 under section 17A and transform the inquest into
4 a public inquiry.
5 At present, the inquest remains the government's
6 preferred form, but very detailed consideration is being
7 given to the second option. Now, I don't want to
8 overstate the position, but both of these issues --
9 that's judicial review and the question of a public
10 inquiry -- are extremely difficult and require very
11 careful consideration at the highest level.
12 The Treasury Solicitors recently wrote to you and to
13 your team on 17 June in an attempt to advance the issues
14 which are extremely important for the government and the
15 Security Service and which are relevant to those. We
16 took the view that it was appropriate to raise these
17 issues and put them out in the open as early as
18 possible, and the particular issue which you recall
19 which was raised by Mr Garnham, is what happens if there
20 is truly relevant material which simply cannot be
21 disclosed on which you would need to form a judgment.
22 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: The answer to that, Mr Hall, is
23 simple: we face that problem when we reach it. It's not
24 a matter that needs to be resolved before the decisions
25 you've just referred to can be taken. They are matters

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1 of law.
2 MR HALL: I accept that, but given that any challenge by way
3 of judicial review would have to be as a last resort,
4 the government is obviously exploring whether there are
5 other ways of coping with the consequences of your
6 ruling on scope.
7 Can I remind you of what the final proposed question
8 or issue is? It is whether any of the above
9 intelligence failings were causative of the events of
10 7 July 2005. That brings the question of fairness very,
11 very much to the fore and that was why the letter was
12 sent on 17 June. I appreciate that, on the following
13 day, Mr Smith, on your behalf, wrote to say it is
14 premature, but the 17 June letter was an attempt to
15 gauge how you, as a coroner, were going to deal with
16 these issues, and that did inform us, and is informing
17 us, on the decisions we're having to make.
18 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I intend to deal with these issues
19 being as fair as I possibly can to everybody. I do not
20 intend to act unfairly towards the families or towards
21 members of MI5.
22 MR HALL: I understand that.
23 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Or the police.
24 MR HALL: The issue is extremely pressing and that is why
25 these are difficult submissions. Can I also add that

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1 there has been a change of government. That has
2 happened obviously since the hearings in April. There
3 are new ministers who have to get on top of their briefs
4 generally and have to be briefed in respect of this
5 particular issue, which is, as I say, a difficult one
6 and one that's very much in the public eye.
7 They are having to have the opportunity to consider
8 these matters and I'm instructed that my clients are not
9 anxious to jump into judicial review proceedings.
10 It's an attempt to explore those reasonable
11 alternatives which led, as I say, to our letter, and
12 which is still informing our consideration.
13 The date I'm going to suggest that my clients can be
14 committed to is the week commencing 12 July. So by
15 18 July, at the latest, my clients would have reached
16 a conclusion on whether they would be seeking permission
17 to challenge your decision on scope by judicial review.
18 Now, that would be a full eight weeks since your
19 ruling was handed down formally on 21 May, and that
20 period in short will have encompassed considering your
21 ruling, a change of government, briefing of new
22 ministers, a meeting which took place with your team at
23 our request, digesting that, an exchange of
24 correspondence which I've already addressed in June, and
25 takes place in the context of what the rules permit by

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1 way of judicial review, which, of course, is as soon as
2 practicable, and we are working at it, but in any event,
3 within three months.
4 That is why, although eight weeks could seem a long
5 time, that is the period that my clients are committed
6 to.
7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Hall, I totally understand the
8 difficulties, the complexities and, of course, the added
9 complication of a change in government.
10 The problem is that the prospect of a Jamieson
11 inquest must have been on the horizon for a number of
12 parties who haven't been involved in the change of
13 government, and so all these possibilities should have
14 been being discussed for months, if not years, and every
15 week that goes past without MI5 or those others for whom
16 you act, engaging with my inquest team, risks the
17 timetable being extended. That has two very grave
18 possible consequences. One is increasing the anguish of
19 the families and the survivors. The other is increasing
20 the costs, which, of course, will be of concern, not
21 just to everybody here, but to the public in general.
22 So I really must seek your assurance, not only that
23 this decision will be forthcoming within the timetable
24 set, because, as you know, as a matter of law, I can't
25 impose a timetable on you other than making my own

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1 comments as to the promptness of any application.
2 But the other thing I seek from you is, can we get
3 an assurance that de bene esse those whom you represent
4 will engage with the inquest team on disclosing the
5 material with which they have to get on and work?
6 MR HALL: Yes.
7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Because if this material doesn't come
8 forward -- as I say, it doesn't need to prejudice the JR
9 application, but you are in a position to give me that
10 undertaking.
11 MR HALL: I have told Mr Keith precisely what I'm prepared
12 to say, which is that we would be content for your team,
13 you, to go to Thames House, headquarters
14 Security Service, to inspect the unredacted ISC report
15 so far as it relates to Security Service material -- if
16 there's other agencies' material, I can't give that
17 assurance at the moment -- plus the speaking notes that
18 were prepared for the witnesses who gave evidence to the
19 ISC on behalf of the Security Service. That would have
20 to be, I'm afraid, on the very clear understanding that
21 no disclosure could be made, even if you disagreed and
22 thought that it wasn't sensitive when you saw it; that
23 no disclosure would be made to the properly interested
24 persons and, of course, without prejudice to any PII
25 application that might in due course be made.

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1 This is simply to enable you -- because we do
2 understand the pressure your team is under -- to start
3 looking at the scope of the material and start preparing
4 in a practical way.
5 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: We can do that when we want to?
6 MR HALL: You can do that within seven days.
7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Hall, you've now offered me the
8 kind of reassurance I required, and, therefore, I have
9 no power, as you know, but I am content with the
10 timetable you envisage, on the basis that we, my team
11 and I, will have access to the material you've just
12 described. Thank you very much.
13 Yes, Mr Keith?
14 MR KEITH: Madam, in those circumstances, unless you wish me
15 to do so, I shan't advance any more submissions on that
16 point.
17 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Right.
18 MR KEITH: Madam, I hope you have -- I know you have a copy
19 of the list of matters to be considered at the
20 pre-inquest review today. That document has been copied
21 to all the parties. May I address the matters set out
22 there, commencing with the general question of
23 disclosure?
24 Submissions re issues arising out of the letter of 27 May
25 Following the handing down of your ruling on 21 May,

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1 Mr Smith -- who, as we all know, is the solicitor to the
2 inquest -- wrote to all the parties setting out your
3 views on certain consequential issues in order to detail
4 more clearly the process by which you intend to
5 investigate, search for, gather and disclose the
6 relevant evidence, and in particular, the letter
7 enclosed a list of provisional factual issues.
8 Mr Smith properly emphasised that the list was
9 a provisional list, and of course, at that stage, the
10 parties hadn't received copies of all the reports that
11 they now have. Indeed, on Monday this week, they would
12 have received by way of access to Lextranet, the latest
13 batch of reports which include or consist of four
14 reports detailing the background of the four men and
15 a report entitled "Travel to London".
16 Mr Smith's letter invited comment on the general
17 procedures which you've set out in that letter, and
18 those who responded, primarily Kingsley Napley, Lovells,
19 Oury Clark, Russell Jones Walker, Sonn Macmillan,
20 West Yorkshire Police, the Met Police and
21 British Transport Police, have indicated that with two
22 exceptions they are completely content with the
23 procedures which you set out.
24 They made the general point, which we entirely
25 accept of course, that that was subject to the point

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1 that, as time unfolds and more factual matters may come
2 to be disclosed, the list of factual issues may have to
3 be refined.
4 Kingsley Napley, in particular, indicated a handful
5 of additions by way of an enclosure to their letter of
6 18 June and, without detailing each of them, perhaps
7 I could indicate that the view of your team, and of
8 course entirely a matter for you, is that most, if not
9 all, of their comments are well-founded.
10 In relation to paragraph 5, we are content and we
11 would support for your consideration of the amendment by
12 way of insertion of the words "contributed to".
13 We suggest that in relation to the subsequent
14 proposed amendments that, for the sake of consistency,
15 the references to "MI5" be, in fact, references to the
16 "Security Service".
17 At paragraph 15(d), where they suggest that you
18 might consider inserting a new head, or a new factual
19 issue, namely, of alleged failure of the
20 Security Service and/or the Metropolitan Police Service
21 to investigate the meeting on 21 March, we would invite
22 you to insert instead the word "possible" meeting.
23 Madam, if you give your consent to those proposals,
24 then might I suggest that the reformulated list be sent
25 out, or rather be made available, on Lextranet, through

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1 the offices of Mr Smith, so that all the parties have
2 access to the up-to-date, revised list of factual
3 issues?
4 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Are there any submissions to the
5 contrary?
6 MR COLTART: No, thank you.
7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you very much. Very well, I do
8 approve those amendments and that should be done as you
9 suggest.
10 MR KEITH: Thank you very much.
11 Lovells, for their part, submitted written comments
12 through Mr Patterson and they make two proposals at
13 paragraph 8 of their written submissions of 1 June 2010.
14 At 8(a), they invite you to consider whether or not
15 the issue should be revised in such a way as to
16 emphasise the issue of whether or not injured passengers
17 received medical treatment in a timely fashion.
18 Our view, with respect, is that the way in which the
19 factual issues have been identified by you makes that
20 issue absolutely clear already. Indeed, we would invite
21 their attention to look at paragraphs 5, 5(a) and 5(g)
22 of the proposed factual issues.
23 In relation to (b), they invite you to consider
24 calling an expert in how bomb blast victims should be
25 treated medically.

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1 For our part, we have a slight concern in relation
2 to that proposal, because we are not presently persuaded
3 that calling one particular witness in relation to that
4 sole topic will be of great assistance to you, and that
5 that is an issue that will inevitably form part of the
6 wider medical considerations which arise in this case
7 which address, as we know they do, the broad issue of
8 whether or not victims were treated properly and
9 timeously.
10 We are sure, with respect, that that issue will
11 therefore be addressed as part of the medical evidence
12 that you will call in due course, and, therefore, it may
13 not make sense at this stage to identify specifically
14 a single person to address the point that they raise.
15 It is, of course, open to them to return to you with
16 further submissions if, as the evidence unfolds, they
17 are of the view that that evidence does not sufficiently
18 address the point that they've raised today.
19 I'll return, if I may, in due course to the issue of
20 blast a little later in these submissions.
21 Turning back to the disclosure process --
22 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Sorry, just before we go on,
23 Mr Patterson, are you content with that approach?
24 MR PATTERSON: I am content with that. May I simply make it
25 clear what the position was? In terms of timeliness of

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1 treatment, it's one thing delays in the emergency
2 responders getting to the scene, it's another thing
3 delays in injured victims being removed from the scene
4 to hospital. But a distinct and very important issue
5 is, what were the delays before individuals actually
6 received treatment at the scene?
7 I am assured by Mr Keith that that will be covered.
8 It simply seemed to us that it was such a central issue
9 on the emergency response that it should be discretely
10 identified, given that it has been identified in another
11 other two respects.
12 As to the second point, I'm grateful for the
13 opportunity to liaise directly with Mr Smith. I have
14 spoken to him about this this morning and, as the
15 disclosure continues, we will consider what material is
16 available.
17 It seems to us, however, that a very real issue for
18 you, madam, is the avoidability of the deaths. So for
19 the -- I think it was 17 who did survive, one of the key
20 issues is how appropriate was the treatment and how can
21 we judge that if we don't have a benchmark? Because my
22 understanding is, particularly in the military field,
23 there are very helpful techniques in relation to
24 stemming blood loss. Perhaps we can simply leave it
25 that we will review the material and perhaps correspond

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1 directly with Mr Smith.
2 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: As far as your first point is
3 concerned, you're absolutely right, it is central. I'm
4 afraid I thought it was so central I didn't realise it
5 would be necessary to specify it. But we'll certainly
6 look at that.
7 The second matter we can revert to, if you feel it's
8 not been covered in the way that my team intended to
9 cover it.
10 MR PATTERSON: Certainly pathologists, I know from
11 experience on homicide cases, often say they deal with
12 dead bodies and, therefore, there are limits on what
13 they can say in relation to survivability and best
14 practices for the treatment of injured victims in bomb
15 blasts.
16 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: It depends on the pathologist, in my
17 experience, Mr Patterson.
18 MR PATTERSON: Yes, certainly from a recent homicide case,
19 I know that one pathologist takes the view that
20 tourniquets can save lives, if properly used, but, if
21 badly used, they can cause difficulties. That's the
22 sort of issue we will probably end up looking at.
23 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Very well, bring it back to me, if
24 you feel that you need to.
25 MR PATTERSON: Thank you very much.

15

1 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Yes, Mr Keith?
2 MR KEITH: Madam, returning to Mr Smith's letter, may
3 I describe it in a little more detail for the benefit in
4 particular of those who are unrepresented?
5 The letter of 27 May observed that the scene
6 reports, as well as the other reports which have
7 subsequently been made available, prepared by your
8 coroner's offices, make reference naturally to a number
9 of documents and exhibits, but the letter emphasised
10 that those matters -- those statements and exhibits --
11 are only part of the picture, and they are, in fact,
12 only a small part of the potentially relevant evidential
13 material that exists.
14 The Metropolitan Police Service, by way of example,
15 hold a very large number of documents, some 30,000
16 witness statements in all, and approaching 40,000
17 exhibits, both real and documentary.
18 West Yorkshire Police, it transpires, also hold
19 a large number of documents in the many thousands, and
20 City of London Police have also been good enough to
21 contact Mr Smith to inform him they hold some 900
22 documents in all, and it is obviously expected that the
23 emergency services themselves will have retained a great
24 deal many documents relating to the events of 7 July.
25 Your letter, therefore, put in place a system for

16

1 collating and examining that material, in order to allow
2 your team to determine the relevancy of that material to
3 the issues that you have identified.
4 Mr Smith invited all the organisations who might be
5 in possession of potentially relevant material to
6 produce to you, or to make available by way of
7 inspection, all the documents which might reasonably be
8 considered as touching upon the provisional issues.
9 The letter also put in place procedures for public
10 interest immunity, and for the redaction of irrelevant
11 personal information from documents sent to or made
12 available to the inquest team, and it's important that
13 I say openly that your team is already redacting from
14 statements and documents received from the police, among
15 others, material that is reasonably considered not to be
16 relevant but is also sensitive, such as dates of birth,
17 home addresses, credit card details, Oyster card
18 information, telephone numbers and so on.
19 But I emphasise that your team is not redacting from
20 the material that it receives any information relating
21 to either the physical injuries suffered as a result of
22 the events of 7 July, or psychiatric trauma identified
23 by any witness.
24 That process of redaction will, of course, continue.
25 The letter set out your expectation that the

17

1 authorities would immediately commence the process of
2 collating and listing material in their possession, and
3 that process has commenced, and Mr Smith has received
4 a number of helpful letters from some of the parties in
5 which they've identified some of the difficulties that
6 they have faced, but also their determination to proceed
7 with the exercise that you have invited them to do.
8 One party, the West Yorkshire Police, confirmed that
9 it has instructed additional counsel to assist with the
10 disclosure process, and so it is to be hoped, with that
11 encouraging start, that the process will continue.
12 It is plainly going to be a lengthy process, and
13 it's a rolling process, because, over time, the factual
14 issues will undoubtedly vary, and disclosure of
15 particular areas may have to be revisited and reassessed
16 in the light of variations in the factual issues.
17 We hope, madam, that that process will be
18 substantially completed by the end of July. We don't
19 envisage, however, that it will be complete. The amount
20 of the documentation itself poses particular problems,
21 certainly in relation to the Metropolitan Police
22 Service, but in relation to that organisation, we are
23 attempting to put into place a system for identifying
24 material located on the HOLMES system that the
25 Metropolitan Police operates in a way that will flag up

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1 and highlight potentially relevant material rather than
2 spending months going through, on an item-by-item basis,
3 every single document or exhibit in their possession.
4 In relation to the Security Service, obviously there
5 are particular issues that arise there, not least, of
6 course, because, as a result of the offer today for
7 access to be given unconditionally to material that they
8 possess and which they are prepared to allow us to see
9 at the moment, there may be further enquiries that have
10 to be made, and plainly there will obviously have to be
11 a debate in due course, assuming there to be no
12 challenge, as to whether or not public interest immunity
13 is claimed in respect of some or all of that material
14 and, if so, on what basis.
15 May I mention one discrete issue as far as
16 photographs --
17 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Before you move on to that, Mr Keith,
18 you haven't sought, as I understand it, a direction from
19 me that the disclosure process should be completed by
20 the end of July. I'm a great believer in focusing minds
21 as well as being understanding.
22 Now, what I was considering -- and I'd welcome your
23 submissions and those of your colleagues -- is what if
24 I were to make a direction that the relevant material
25 was to be disclosed by the end of July, but that there

19

1 should be liberty to apply informally, we don't need to
2 come back into court, for any party that -- I understand
3 the complexities and the amount of material involved
4 so -- so that any party could just say to Mr Smith,
5 "Could you please tell the coroner these are the
6 problems, could we have a bit more time?"
7 MR KEITH: Madam, I would certainly welcome that direction.
8 For our part, we recognise, as I think you said, that
9 there are plainly going to be differences between the
10 particular parties and some parties will encounter very
11 much greater difficulties than others. But in the light
12 of your direction that they have liberty to apply any
13 inconsistencies in their positions, or unique
14 difficulties, can be addressed by way of written
15 application to you.
16 So certainly I would welcome that direction.
17 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Hill, you're probably one of those
18 most affected, if I make such a direction.
19 MR HILL: Yes.
20 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I know that those whom you represent
21 have been doing everything possible to provide this
22 material on a timely basis.
23 MR HILL: Yes.
24 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Would you have any objection,
25 provided, of course, I personally undertook to be

20

1 understanding of the difficulties, if I made a direction
2 with liberty to apply?
3 MR HILL: I'd resist a formal order insofar as the
4 Metropolitan Police are concerned, and it may be,
5 notwithstanding your understandable intention to make an
6 order for other interested persons, that you could find
7 room to avoid that insofar as the MPS are concerned.
8 The basis for distinguishing, of course, would be that
9 the Metropolitan Police enjoy a unique position in these
10 proceedings: namely, designated interested person, and
11 also coroner's officers.
12 If I, therefore, am seen to resist a formal order,
13 it's not on the basis of any lack of cooperation,
14 because we would say there's been far greater
15 cooperation, as is necessary, for a coroner's officer,
16 than for any other party hitherto.
17 Our concern about the making of a hard-edged
18 direction today is that we'd like a two-way process to
19 start to develop. It's been one-way, I'm not suggesting
20 that we should submit the coroner or her team to
21 directions. But what I mean -- I was going to come on
22 to it --
23 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: You can try, Mr Hill.
24 MR HILL: I'm not even going to try. Under the matters to
25 be considered -- we haven't come to it yet -- one that's

21

1 been identified by Mr Smith and your team is
2 a provisional list of scene witnesses.
3 Now, it occurs to us that on material already
4 provided through the various scene reports, bombers'
5 reports, travel reports, it will become apparent to all
6 interested persons where the focus of interest is going
7 to lie, and the sooner that focus is applied, the
8 greater assistance -- can I put it this way -- we could
9 gain, as could your team, as to completing the
10 disclosure exercise.
11 May I give one example of that, which I would have
12 come on to later, but I'll come to it now? When we are
13 considering the category of preventability that is
14 restricted to post-detonation survivability, there are,
15 we can well understand, individuals who, it will be said
16 by other legal teams, come into that category of
17 requiring an intense focus on potential survivability.
18 There are others who will not. That is because,
19 sadly, of the gross nature of the horrible injuries that
20 were suffered as a result of the detonation.
21 The sooner there could be an identification of
22 a list, however broad, of those witnesses who come into
23 that potential survivability bracket, the easier it will
24 be for us, and indeed for your team, to manage the
25 ongoing disclosure exercise where it relates to those on

22

1 the list as opposed to those not on the list.
2 So, for that reason, and for a host of other
3 reasons, I'm not to be taken as saying for a moment that
4 we're seeking to restrict access to the HOLMES account
5 on the part of your team, nor that there is any sense of
6 disorganisation. On the contrary, there's a very large
7 operational team, at New Scotland Yard, and I've been to
8 the operations room and it's staffed by a hive of
9 officers who work all day, every day, on cooperation
10 with your team. We're going to continue to do that.
11 But the sooner -- if you're minded to make any
12 directions at all today -- you could possibly focus
13 interested persons' minds on issues such as which of the
14 deceased in particular are to be looked at against
15 the -- or through the prism of survivability, the more
16 help we'll all have with the disclosure exercise.
17 So I would ask that you don't make a formal order to
18 complete the disclosure process. Frankly, if you do,
19 I suspect the Metropolitan Police would simply have to
20 apply for liberty, as a matter of course. But it may be
21 that you don't feel that you need to do that insofar as
22 the Metropolitan Police are concerned. Others may be in
23 a different category.
24 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I know my team -- as Mr Keith is
25 about to tell me -- are working hard on the very issues

23

1 you've just raised.
2 MR HILL: Yes.
3 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Keith, any comments on Mr Hill's
4 submissions?
5 MR BEGGS: Just before Mr Keith responds, may I just,
6 I hope, not rudely stand up, Mr John Beggs for
7 West Yorkshire Police.
8 We have indicated that we are confident of starting
9 the process by the end of July and, unlike the England
10 football team on Friday, we will do our best to complete
11 it as soon as we humanly can, but, like Mr Hill, I have
12 to, as a matter of courtesy, tell you that we certainly
13 would not be able to finish it or anywhere near finish
14 it, by the end of July, for a number of reasons, one of
15 the most prominent of which is we will have to liaise
16 with other parties in respect of certain issues which we
17 set out in our letter and which I have also told
18 Mr Keith about.
19 So we will certainly start the process, we would
20 hope to get you some materials, but like Mr Hill, if
21 there is a hard-edged order, we'll inevitably have to
22 come back within a few weeks and set out some details to
23 our difficulties.
24 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I don't like the word "start" the
25 process, when my aim is to keep to this timetable,

24

1 which, as you know, is very tight.
2 MR BEGGS: Yes.
3 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I have tried to assure the families
4 that I'm going to get them answers as soon as possible,
5 and if we are talking about starting the process by the
6 end of July and then we have intervening summer holidays
7 for many people and other matters come along, it is
8 imposing a considerable burden upon my team, which --
9 I wonder if we have enough of them to survive, if
10 everything is coming in a flurry, towards the end of the
11 summer. I just don't see how we're going to be ready
12 and keep to the timetable. That's my query about the
13 use of your word "start".
14 MR BEGGS: Can I redefine it? By "start" I mean start the
15 process of physically giving you access to documents.
16 We have already started for several months now,
17 retrieving and collating, but it's simply pointless me
18 suggesting that we will have finished by the end
19 of July, because we will not have done, however hard we
20 try, I'm afraid.
21 In terms of focusing minds -- and it may be later in
22 the agenda we come back to the point -- it would
23 certainly help us, and I'm certain one or two other
24 parties may have the same view, if West Yorkshire Police
25 knew when the preventability issues, so far as the

25

1 pre-bombing intelligence, were going to start in the
2 hearing, because that would give us some focus and it
3 would enable us to say to our clients "We may need to
4 deploy greater resources and you now have a more clear
5 timetable".
6 As it stands at the moment, we're slightly uncertain
7 as to when that aspect of the case may start and so, if,
8 later in the day, we're able to give you clarity on
9 that, that would certainly assist the process. That's
10 all I think I can usefully add for the moment.
11 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you. Anybody else who wishes
12 to say anything before I return to Mr Keith on this
13 particular point?
14 MR GIBBS: We believe we could comply with such an order.
15 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you very much.
16 MS BARTON: The same applies to City of London Police.
17 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you.
18 MR O'CONNOR: Madam, may we offer, as hopefully typical of
19 all bereaved families, that we really within a week --
20 in fact, we could do it today, but let us say seven
21 days -- are quite happy to indicate, from our point of
22 view, where a real survivability issue arises.
23 Hopefully that will assist.
24 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: That's helpful, Mr O'Connor, thank
25 you.

26

1 MR O'CONNOR: Madam, my second indication is this. I sense
2 by implication from what my learned friends Mr Hill and
3 Mr Beggs have said, that they may come across areas of
4 potential disclosure where they need to consult with the
5 Security Services whether on a belt and braces basis or
6 not, because there may be a real sensitivity concern.
7 Thus, the role of the Security Services here, in
8 facilitating keeping to our date and an effective and
9 efficient inquest, is not confined to their current
10 dilemma over judicial review and challenge, but extends
11 even more critically to their facilitating and dealing
12 efficiently with such communications, and all we suggest
13 is that, because of one's experiences with the
14 Security Services, the possibility that you may at some
15 stage in the future request a record and the timetable
16 of enquiries from police services of this nature to the
17 Security Services and tracking the promptness of their
18 responses is something about which they should be warned
19 in advance as an encouragement.
20 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: What you've said has been heard,
21 Mr O'Connor. I suspect that Mr Hill and Mr Beggs will
22 be doing just that, because they'll have to be
23 justifying any delays on the part of the people they
24 represent, so I suspect if they can pass the -- try to
25 attribute responsibility elsewhere, they'll tell me.

27

1 But thank you.
2 May I extract from other counsel representing
3 bereaved families the same undertaking; that within
4 seven days they'll indicate where a real survivability
5 issue is raised?
6 MR COLTART: Of course, yes.
7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you, Mr Coltart. Mr Saunders?
8 MR SAUNDERS: Can I just point out that there is one
9 difficulty of course, that, as yet, our team -- and
10 I think others are the same -- haven't gone into the
11 detail of the statements.
12 As you know from the last hearing, some of the
13 families for years believed that their loved one died
14 immediately. It was only through the scene reports
15 prepared by the Metropolitan Police that they learnt for
16 the very first time that may not be the case.
17 Whilst I hear what Mr O'Connor says, we're not in
18 a position at the moment to have gone through all of the
19 material, bearing in mind the number of families we
20 represent, to satisfy ourselves that, in fact, that is
21 accurate or not.
22 So that's the only concern I have.
23 I know already that there are two in particular who
24 would be on that list.
25 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Of course, Mr Saunders. If, as you

28

1 read through more of the material that has not yet been
2 disclosed, you find there are other people to whom this
3 issue would apply, then of course it will be understood.
4 But I think what Mr Hill is seeking, is some kind of
5 indication at this stage that would assist the process.
6 It won't necessarily be exhaustive, but anything you can
7 do.
8 MR SAUNDERS: Of course.
9 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Subject to anything else, I would
10 give a direction that that should happen, but
11 understanding, of course, that you may come back and say
12 "On further reflection and further consideration, we
13 also have this issue in respect of this particular
14 person".
15 MR SAUNDERS: Of course we're able to do that.
16 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you very much. Ms Sheff?
17 MS SHEFF: In respect of our clients, I am aware that one is
18 out of the country at the moment on a holiday and
19 another one, as Mr Smith is aware, lives abroad and
20 requires an interpreter in order to take instructions.
21 That may take us a little bit longer with regard to
22 those issues, but we will do our best within the
23 timetable provided.
24 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you very much.
25 Anybody else on that particular issue?

29

1 MR PATTERSON: No difficulty, madam.
2 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you. Yes, Mr Keith?
3 MR KEITH: Madam, on that last point, thank you very much,
4 we welcome the assistance of the families in that
5 regard. I am bound to say that we respectfully adopt
6 what you say in relation to difficulties that it may
7 pose, because we are aware, we acknowledge, that the
8 families, at this stage, have only had access to the
9 primary witness statements and the primary exhibits and
10 a final decision in relation to whether or not they
11 would wish to raise an issue on survivability will, of
12 course, depend on a more minute examination of the
13 underlying medical position, much of which has not yet
14 been made available to them, and is not likely, in fact,
15 to be made available until we have had in all the
16 disclosed material from the other interested parties,
17 persons, in particular, of course, hospitals and the
18 like.
19 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: What I could say is where known --
20 MR KEITH: Please.
21 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: -- at present on the present
22 material.
23 MR KEITH: Madam, returning to the first question in these
24 submissions, the points raised by Mr Hill, may
25 I acknowledge, of course, that the Metropolitan Police,

30

1 as I've acknowledged before, are in a unique position
2 and have offered a great deal of assistance by way of
3 their coroner's officers and the preparation of the
4 reports.
5 It's fair to say that they are in a unique position
6 because of the vast amount of material on the HOLMES
7 system, and, therefore, in my submission Mr Hill's
8 observations have some force.
9 May I invite you perhaps to adopt a middle path,
10 much beloved in the civil courts, of inviting the
11 parties to use their best endeavours to complete the
12 disclosure process, perhaps not by the end of July, but
13 by 23 July, because in a moment or two I'm going to
14 advance submissions in relation to whether or not you
15 would consider perhaps taking out of your list the
16 provisional dates currently booked for the week of
17 13 July which might, on one view, be too soon, in light
18 of all that has to be achieved, and to refix that
19 hearing in the week commencing 19 July, perhaps at the
20 end, namely, 23 July, and that might afford you a proper
21 opportunity to enquire of the properly interested
22 persons how far the disclosure process has proceeded and
23 whether or not they have encountered substantial
24 difficulties in meeting the best endeavours direction
25 that we would invite you to impose today.

31

1 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Right.
2 MR KEITH: Turning back, finally, to the disclosure process,
3 may I raise one discrete issue which concerns the
4 photographs?
5 The Metropolitan Police Service, as well as the
6 Fire Brigade, have in their procession deeply
7 distressing photographs as well as detailed descriptions
8 and schedules of body parts.
9 We've considered the issue of photographs very
10 carefully and we've invited the Metropolitan Police
11 Service, with your approval, to catalogue the
12 photographs that they possess in a particular way
13 determined by relevancy in order to facilitate the
14 review of those photographs by your legal team with
15 a view subsequently to determining what ought to be
16 disclosed in due course to the properly interested
17 persons.
18 It's unlikely that all or indeed a substantial
19 number of the photographs will be relevant. Some
20 photographs will of course be relevant to setting the
21 overall scenes in all their horror and some photographs
22 may be relevant to individual cases where, it may be
23 suggested, there was a lack of timely medical
24 intervention. It's difficult at this stage to say with
25 any degree of certainty.

32

1 But we've taken the view for your consideration that
2 multiple photographs of the dead and the dying will
3 serve no useful purpose and are likely only to cause
4 distress and anguish. But I wanted to assure the
5 parties, through you, that it is a matter to which we
6 give anxious consideration and we'll continue to do so.
7 Secondly, may we also, through you, assure the
8 families that there will be no question of any
9 distressing photographs being made available to the
10 public by way of the Lextranet website, where, of
11 course, these proceedings, including the relevant
12 evidence, will in due course be recorded.
13 Madam, if you are minded to make a best endeavours
14 direction in relation to the disclosure process and its
15 substantial conclusion by the end of July, by 23 July,
16 may we invite you to invite the parties to address two
17 other matters?
18 It would be of huge assistance to the team if, when
19 relevant parties are making their disclosure of
20 documents, having reviewed by way of their origin or
21 subject matter whether or not they are to be relevant,
22 whether they're regarded to be relevant, they could
23 expressly identify when communicating with Mr Smith
24 witnesses, the names of the witnesses and their location
25 that they deem are potentially relevant.

33

1 In addition, we would be very grateful if they could
2 identify a short precis of the areas that they envisage
3 by reference to the provisional factual issues, that the
4 witness might be able to address.
5 Although we will, of course, ourselves, be examining
6 all the disclosed material, a route map provided by the
7 properly interested persons who in the first instance
8 will be in the best position to assess the relevancy of
9 that material, because of course they will of necessity
10 have had to undertake the obligation imposed on them by
11 you, will be of great assistance.
12 Secondly, we would be very obliged if the relevant
13 parties could provide, when they provide the documents,
14 a full index of those documents and provide the
15 documents that they intend to disclose electronically.
16 That was the point raised by Mr Smith in his letter of
17 27 May.
18 If you are minded to agree with that submission and
19 with those requests, then Mr Smith will be in a position
20 to repeat your order in a letter to the relevant
21 entities after this hearing so that there is no doubt
22 about what needs to be done.
23 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I think we'll again deal with these
24 matters as they arise.
25 Does anybody have any comments about my having the

34

1 next directions hearing on 23 July? Right, in which
2 case that will be the date of the next directions
3 hearing.
4 Does anybody wish to add to their comments about my
5 directing that all parties should use their best
6 endeavours to complete the disclosure process by
7 23 July? I have, of course, taken very much into
8 account the submissions of Mr Hill, and Mr Hay's.
9 I suspect Mr Hall would have submissions, but I don't
10 need to hear them, because I understand the
11 complications. It is a best endeavours order.
12 Does anybody wish to comment also as to the added
13 nuances that Mr Keith has mentioned as to disclosure;
14 for example, the question of the index and the short
15 precis?
16 MR HILL: I was going to raise photographs. I don't know
17 whether you're coming to that?
18 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Yes, we can go back to that, Mr Hill,
19 certainly.
20 MR HILL: Can I just say that we would like to take the
21 opportunity to suggest that there is a question of
22 principle and there's a question of practicability with
23 regard to scene photographs.
24 As Mr Keith has already inferred, this is just about
25 the most difficult topic on which to remain

35

1 dispassionate, because the photographs are of the utmost
2 gravity and horror.
3 I have discussed with Ms Boyd, who's here for the
4 LFB today, what stance we think possibly, on principle,
5 might attract you, because, for the avoidance of doubt,
6 we would submit that it would not be right in all the
7 circumstances for photographs of the scenes, in
8 particular those where bodies are still in situ, to be
9 made available, either on the website as to which
10 obviously not, or through Lextranet, and we would submit
11 that Lextranet, albeit in a sense a closed facility to
12 those engaged in this process, would still be a step too
13 far in respect of graphic scene photographs.
14 We wonder whether, in the same way that there is to
15 be an iterative process as to witnesses, as to
16 survivability, as to issues, which you're clearly
17 engaging in, there should also be a consideration by all
18 interested persons as to which of them think, as
19 a matter of principle, it will be necessary for them to
20 inspect original photographs.
21 If it's not necessary, then really, let's identify
22 that now, because it's only upon principle where those
23 interested persons identify that they really need to see
24 the images, that we then need to go on to practicability
25 as to which our opening stance would be that, where

36

1 albums of photographs are held by the
2 Metropolitan Police, we will of course facilitate
3 inspection, visiting and inspection, upon request, and
4 to your order.
5 We are anxious about a prospect of copying images of
6 such horror, albeit, if we were ordered, we would submit
7 to, for example, sealed copies being made available to
8 those legal teams who had identified on principle a need
9 to view.
10 I'm saying all of that of course against the
11 background of a later matter on the agenda for today
12 entitled "Body mapping of injuries to the deceased".
13 Mr Smith, having drafted that, knows, as I'm sure you do
14 as well, that considerable thought is being given, work
15 is being done at the moment, to computer-generated
16 images, simulations, which can and no doubt will include
17 graphic representations of bodies, which would avoid the
18 need on that basis alone for individuals to view
19 original photographic albums.
20 I'm not saying any of this with a mind to
21 restricting anybody who really identifies the need, and
22 the Metropolitan Police, let me say it, would of course
23 not stand in the way of making available to any
24 interested person, for example, images taken at the
25 scenes post-detonation by Metropolitan Police Service

37

1 personnel. That's not the point of the submission.
2 Equally, in the fullness of time, albeit that
3 original images we would submit would never need to be
4 aired in open court, there may be individuals engaged in
5 this process -- and you, madam, would be the principal
6 person we'd have in mind -- who will sadly need to view
7 the original images, but we think that that should be
8 restricted as much as it possibly can be, and I am
9 afraid I'm speaking as someone who has viewed, for
10 example, the first images taken by the London Fire
11 Brigade.
12 So we say there mustn't be a confusion as between
13 website and Lextranet. Even having got the distinction
14 clearly in mind, we'd say Lextranet, to put it shortly,
15 is a step too far for images of this gravity.
16 So we encourage a discussion and a principled
17 approach to the need to view.
18 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: The parties you're talking about who
19 may or may not require production of these dreadful
20 photographs of the scene are -- it's not just, of
21 course, the families. We are talking about a number of
22 the responders who may have an interest in explaining
23 the scene as they encountered it.
24 MR HILL: Can I say, given the opportunity, that I'm
25 mindful, representing Metropolitan Police, that there

38

1 are, for want of a better phrase, first responders,
2 namely, police officers, who attended the scene, and
3 albeit that the impact on them, one might readily
4 imagine, is less than the impact upon a bereaved family
5 of seeing images, nonetheless there is an impact, and we
6 act under a duty of welfare towards any
7 Metropolitan Police officer.
8 For that reason, in addition to what I've said thus
9 far, the prospect of requiring police officers,
10 traumatised by their own efforts at the scene, to have
11 to relive and go through the images again is one that we
12 would want to be approached with extreme care and
13 caution, and so it may well be that Metropolitan Police
14 officers, whilst they give evidence, and have statements
15 as to what they did, can describe it, those who have
16 a job of making decisions at the culmination of this
17 process and possibly legal submissions see the original
18 images, but it's not necessary for witnesses to relive
19 in that sense.
20 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Ms Boyd, was there anything you wish
21 to add?
22 MS BOYD: I don't think I can usefully add anything to that.
23 The London Fire Brigade remain very concerned, madam,
24 given the severity of the images.
25 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Keith, any proposals? Two

39

1 matters, really: one, the Lextranet point, and the
2 other, the parties identifying where original
3 photographs or video recordings are likely to be
4 required.
5 MR KEITH: Madam, yes, really in relation to the two points
6 identified, the first one, the point of principle.
7 We would be concerned at any step that directly or
8 indirectly limited access, even potentially, to
9 documentary evidence that might be in due course
10 admitted at the inquests.
11 The statutory provisions that govern inquests, in
12 particular rule 37(1), provides properly interested
13 persons with a right to object to documentary evidence
14 being admitted and, of necessity, there is, therefore,
15 an implied right to access to material that may be
16 adduced in due course in evidence.
17 In any event, it is, I think, probably too soon to
18 determine what will be relevant and what will not be
19 relevant by way of photographic evidence. Much again
20 will depend on whether or not we receive notification of
21 persons who wish to argue that a particular bereaved
22 might have survived, which will engage the need to
23 adduce photographic evidence.
24 In relation to the practicalities, the fault may
25 perhaps be mine, I think I made reference to Lextranet,

40

1 whereas I should have made reference to the public site
2 of the website.
3 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I think Mr Hill knew that
4 distinction.
5 MR KEITH: I think I should make it doubly clear, because
6 there is a great difference between Lextranet and the
7 public website. The Lextranet system is secure. It has
8 a disabling function on it that prevents it from
9 allowing material to be printed. But more particularly,
10 it enables unrepresented families, particularly those
11 living abroad, to have access, as they are entitled, to
12 material which is disclosed to the properly interested
13 persons and, therefore, it provides a very valuable tool
14 to ensuring that the inquest which you are conducting is
15 conducted properly with due regard to the rights of all
16 the families.
17 We readily understand that there is a need to
18 restrict use of the photographs and it is to that end
19 that I have advanced my original submissions in relation
20 to whether or not all the photographs would be relevant
21 and why we wish to assure the families that there will
22 be no question of any distressing photographs being
23 displayed on the public website, but it is, as I've
24 said, too soon to rule out the use of such photographs.
25 In relation to Mr Hill's offer by alternative that

41

1 the photographs should be examined at Scotland Yard, we
2 note what he has to say, but it would mean I think very
3 considerable administrative difficulties because it
4 would require the Metropolitan Police to make
5 arrangements for all the properly interested persons to
6 make individual arrangements for viewing of those
7 photographs, and there are a lot of photographs.
8 One of the benefits of the Lextranet process is, of
9 course, it allows you to have your team place on the
10 Lextranet system material which has already been
11 determined is going to be relevant to the issues that
12 will arise in the course of the inquests.
13 If, by contrast, you were to invite the Metropolitan
14 Police Service to make the photographs physically
15 available instead, it would require your team to divide
16 out, for the purposes of that process, all the
17 photographs that might be potentially relevant and those
18 that might not be, and then to adhere to that process
19 for the purposes of each individual examination by the
20 properly interested persons.
21 I fear that it will simply lead to a greater use of
22 time and resources, both of which may become in short
23 supply in the summer.
24 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Do I detect that you don't want me to
25 deal with Mr Hill's point as to about whether these

42

1 photographs go on Lextranet at the moment, because we
2 have no idea, really, what photographs we're talking
3 about?
4 MR KEITH: We don't. I think I would be grateful for your
5 indication that this is a matter that we can discuss
6 further between ourselves administratively and, if we
7 can't reach a proper solution, or if a solution exists
8 but it is one that should be properly notified to all
9 the other parties, then may we bring it back before you
10 in due course?
11 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Certainly.
12 As far as the second point Mr Hill was making, again
13 appreciating that, following Mr Saunders' point, it may
14 not be possible at this stage to identify those scenes
15 where it is known that original photographs will be
16 necessary, is there any point in making a similar best
17 endeavours order to say that, by the time of the next
18 hearing, the parties should have used their best
19 endeavours to identify those scenes where they know now
20 original photographs may be necessary?
21 MR KEITH: Madam, I think that if the parties, as I am sure
22 they will, respond to your direction that they do notify
23 us of those bereaved in relation to where there is an
24 issue of survivability, then of course we will of
25 necessity be required to look at the photographs

43

1 relevant to those persons and to form a judgment as to
2 whether or not they will be relevant.
3 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Very well.
4 MR KEITH: I think the second part will follow necessarily
5 from the first, and, therefore, doesn't require
6 a specific direction.
7 Looking more widely, because over the next three or
8 four weeks we will start and, I hope, complete, in
9 relation to the primary witnesses, the identification of
10 the provisional batting list of witnesses that are
11 likely to be called, we will of course also become
12 engaged in a process of starting to examine what
13 exhibits might also be necessary for the purposes of
14 calling those witnesses, and, therefore, I think that
15 there is an inevitability about examining what
16 photographs will be relevant and what photographs will
17 not.
18 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: So you seek no direction from me?
19 MR KEITH: No direction, please.
20 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Does anybody have any other comments
21 on those particular issues? Thank you very much.
22 Right, the next point is reports, Mr Keith, I think.
23 Submissions re scene reports
24 MR KEITH: Madam, yes. The scene reports and the further
25 reports.

44

1 The four scene reports, as you know, were served
2 before the last hearing. On Monday this week, as I've
3 mentioned, five more reports were uplifted into the
4 Lextranet system, four into the backgrounds of the four
5 men and one concerning the travel to London, and may
6 I record once again our gratitude to your coroner's
7 officers for preparing those reports.
8 We anticipate that one more report will follow
9 addressing the forensic aspects of the bombs.
10 At this stage, may I say that it's unlikely that
11 there will be more reports, essentially because neither
12 the evidence relating to the emergency response, nor
13 that relating to preventability easily admits itself to
14 being summarised in the way in which the matters which
15 have already been summarised have been.
16 One or two of the survivors have written in to the
17 inquest team kindly pointing out what they view as
18 inaccuracies in the reports, so may I emphasise once
19 again that those reports are only the starting point by
20 way of a route map to the evidence that may in due
21 course be called, and it is, as you have emphasised in
22 your ruling, the evidence that will matter, not the
23 reports.
24 The witness statements which underpin the four scene
25 reports have been made available on Lextranet, as have

45

1 most of the exhibits to which reference is made, and
2 Mr Smith and his colleagues are in the process of
3 reading and cataloguing the further witness statements
4 that relate to the reports which have most recently been
5 served, and they hope to complete that task in the next
6 two or three weeks or so, at which point they will be
7 added to Lextranet.
8 There is a specific point, however, which arises in
9 relation to the most recent reports, and it's this: five
10 witnesses whose evidence is summarised in the reports
11 have had their names provisionally anonymised. They are
12 witnesses A, B, C, D and E. I don't think I need detail
13 where they appear in the reports because all the parties
14 will have read the reports and seen those references.
15 I say "provisional anonymisation" because those five
16 witnesses either have expressed subjective concerns as
17 to their own safety were their identities to be
18 revealed, or the nature of their position is such that
19 the Metropolitan Police Service feel that they owe
20 a duty of care to those witnesses which requires them to
21 undertake a process of investigation as to whether or
22 not a claim for anonymity or screens, generally public
23 interest immunity, may have to be made in their cases.
24 Risk assessments have started but they're not yet
25 complete. Rather than hold up the service of reports,

46

1 we took the view, subject to your approval, that it
2 would be better for them to be provisionally served in
3 this way with the names anonymised, rather than waiting
4 for the process of risk assessment and any consequential
5 application to you to be concluded. It plainly is not
6 appropriate to reveal their names now, because that
7 would defeat the object of any future application that
8 is made, but we have sought and received the agreement
9 of the Metropolitan Police Service, quite properly, that
10 this provisional position is conditional on their
11 completing that process of risk assessment and either
12 withdrawing, in due course, the objections to disclosure
13 or to make any necessary application for anonymity or
14 screens.
15 That process, as Mr Smith's letter has made clear,
16 will permit the interested parties to forward general
17 submissions in relation to public interest immunity and
18 in particular whether or not applications for anonymity
19 screens are justified, without, of course, knowing the
20 detail, necessarily, of the grounds for any such
21 application.
22 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Unless anybody has any comments, it
23 seems to me that that is a perfectly sensible approach.
24 Mr Hill, I don't suppose you have anything much to add,
25 have you?

47

1 MR HILL: Only so that all hear it, the risk assessments are
2 necessary and we have taken the stance that, where
3 a duty of care is owed, it's owed in respect of the
4 current proceedings, given the likely public focus on
5 these proceedings when they reconvene in terms of the
6 giving of evidence.
7 But the risk assessments are being completed now,
8 without -- unless you wish to make an order,
9 can I indicate that we do think that by next week, the
10 end of next week, the risk assessments will be complete.
11 Of course, it goes without saying that your team has not
12 had restricted access to the identities of the
13 anonymised witnesses, they know who they are, we'll
14 complete the risk assessments and then the matter will
15 be in your team's hands.
16 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I think that's a perfectly proper
17 approach, Mr Hill, and I will make the order in respect
18 of it, thank you.
19 MR HILL: Can I just go on? I was going to touch on the
20 next report, the forensic issues report.
21 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Coltart?
22 MR COLTART: Madam, may I make a brief observation before we
23 move on? Whilst I can see that the course undertaken to
24 date in relation to anonymity is a perfectly proper one,
25 I have no objection to it at all, can I ask that insofar

48

1 as the risk assessments are produced and any evidence is
2 garnered from the anonymous witnesses, insofar as that
3 can be served on an inter partes basis, even if there
4 has to be some redaction or whatever it might be, it
5 will enable us to take an informed view as to what our
6 stance should be on any application for PII which
7 follows.
8 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I think you'll find that is the plan.
9 MR COLTART: I'm grateful.
10 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you.
11 MR HILL: Yes, forgive me, I was just going to say as to the
12 next envisaged report on forensics, given that the next
13 hearing is proposed on 23 July, without being categoric
14 about it, my instructions are that that report is likely
15 to be complete before that hearing and so we will be in
16 a position to provide it to your team at some stage
17 between now and 23 July.
18 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you very much.
19 Yes, Mr Keith?
20 MR KEITH: Madam, may I respond very briefly to Mr Coltart's
21 point?
22 Mr Smith in his letter of 23 May made plain at
23 paragraph 16 that:
24 "Where any organisation that seeks to rely upon
25 public interest immunity shall provide a summary of the

49

1 reasons for the claim in a manner that may be disclosed
2 to interested persons and published."
3 So the concern that is expressed has already been
4 met by the procedure that you authorised through
5 Mr Smith's letter.
6 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Well, our aim, as everybody I hope
7 knows by now, is to be as open as we can without
8 endangering the lives of anyone concerned.
9 MR KEITH: Indeed.
10 Madam, may I then turn to the subject of contacting
11 witnesses which is on your agenda?
12 Submissions re contacting witnesses
13 There are, of course, not an inconsiderable number
14 of witnesses. The total number -- I emphasise "total"
15 because this figure includes witnesses who we are
16 already certain we would not be calling -- of witnesses
17 in connection with the four scenes alone amounts to some
18 thousand witnesses.
19 By contrast, for those in the court who have been
20 following the proceedings in the Baha Mousa Inquiry,
21 there were some 247 witnesses called and 101 witnesses
22 read, over 95 hearing days.
23 Before heads droop in despair, may I say that Mr Hay
24 has already reviewed for relevancy a great deal many
25 more witness statements, in essence all the witness

50

1 statements which have some bearing on the scenes, but to
2 which no direct reference was in fact made in the scene
3 reports prepared by your coroner's officers.
4 That total amounted to some 4,000 to 5,000 witness
5 statements. But the majority of those statements
6 address issues with which we anticipate you would not
7 wish to be concerned, such as cordons, continuity, as
8 well as the accounts of passengers who were not
9 immediately connected to the scenes.
10 However, even on the most narrow approach, there is
11 likely to be over 500 witnesses, although, of course,
12 the nature of that witness evidence is likely to be that
13 the witnesses can give evidence fairly shortly because
14 many, of course, will have only a fragmentary or a short
15 recollection of the events of which they will be asked
16 to give evidence and, of course, a great deal many
17 statements will be read.
18 Nonetheless, contacting and scheduling poses very
19 real, but we hope, not insurmountable difficulties.
20 We recognise that many of the witnesses will have
21 very real mental or physical difficulties associated
22 with their attendance before you.
23 I should add at this point that Mrs Anckorn,
24 Secretary to the Inquest, has procured and arranged for
25 the installation of a wheelchair lift to the courtroom

51

1 to allow access to the witness-box, and arrangements are
2 also being made for witnesses to give evidence via
3 videolink, if you deem it appropriate. But many of the
4 witnesses will be difficult to locate, and we are aware
5 that we must start, as soon as we can, the process of
6 contacting them, and, as Mr Hill has observed, quite
7 rightly, that requires us to identify as soon as we can
8 the list of witnesses who we deem suitable to be called,
9 subject to your approval.
10 The Metropolitan Police Service have already sent
11 out letters to all the witnesses who are mentioned in
12 the scene reports explaining that reference has been
13 made to their evidence, that their witness statements
14 have been handed to your team, and that in due course
15 those statements may be disclosed in the proceedings.
16 It's something that they felt they had to do, as, of
17 course, they took the original statements, but at our
18 suggestion, they asked those witnesses to complete and
19 return a form confirming their current contact details.
20 Without going into the figures in detail, the
21 response rate has been, so far, fairly low. There is no
22 real difficulty in relation to those witnesses who work
23 for organisations and entities who have payroll or
24 tracking information which allow those witnesses to be
25 located, but in relation to private, civilian witnesses,

52

1 it's clear that a great deal will have to be done in
2 order to locate them and, once located, to persuade
3 them, or invite them, to attend to give evidence.
4 The task, as I've said, will, however, be eased if
5 we are able to refine as soon as possible the list of
6 witnesses who realistically will need to be called, and
7 so we propose to serve, early next month, a preliminary
8 list of witnesses selected from those identified in the
9 scene reports whom we should propose should be called to
10 give evidence, subject to, of course, availability and
11 medical considerations.
12 Once that list has been served, subject to your
13 approval, we'll then invite all the properly interested
14 persons who indicate their views on that list and, in
15 particular, whether there are other scene witnesses who
16 they would wish us to call or whether certain witnesses
17 are unnecessary.
18 We don't invite you to make any order but we would
19 ask you instead to permit us to set that date
20 administratively in the letter that Mr Smith proposes
21 sending out, subject to your approval, to which I've
22 already made reference.
23 Then there will, of course, need to be a similar
24 rolling process in relation to those witnesses who are
25 relevant to the further reports served this week, and

53

1 then, of course, those additional witnesses identified
2 by the properly interested persons in the course of
3 meeting your direction that they indicate possibly
4 relevant witnesses together with the precis of the
5 evidence that they might be able to give.
6 Those two latter stages are, I'm afraid, unlikely to
7 be completed before August, simply because of the amount
8 of material which can be expected to flow in
9 during July.
10 There is one particular issue in relation to
11 witnesses that I should draw to your attention. It
12 concerns background evidence.
13 The Metropolitan Police took a great deal of
14 evidence from friends and families and work colleagues
15 of the deceased, which set out, but only for the limited
16 purposes of the possible criminal trial then envisaged,
17 some evidence relating to the last movements of the
18 deceased, their personal background and their travel
19 arrangements, and in some cases they also took victim
20 impact statements from the families.
21 You are, of course, enquiring into 52 separate
22 inquests, and in your ruling you identified that it was
23 an important facet of the inquest process that each of
24 the families were involved as much as possible and, if
25 you were to allow evidence to be adduced in relation to

54

1 each of the deceased, this general aim would be
2 supported.
3 It's also right to say that the purposes and
4 functions, of course, of your inquest differ greatly
5 from the limited purpose and functions which were in the
6 minds of the Metropolitan Police officers who took the
7 statements originally, and, therefore, as you know, you
8 indicated through Mr Smith that you were minded to
9 adduce evidence dealing with the personal background of
10 each of the 52 deceased, which, although distressing,
11 will help to set the context to ensure the proceedings
12 give an appropriate focus to each of the deceased as
13 individuals.
14 We propose, subject to your approval, that the
15 inquest team take the views, however, of individual
16 witnesses as to whether or not they would wish to give
17 evidence orally and whether they would prefer their
18 statements to be read, and plainly we will we will have
19 to invite you in due course to give some direction both
20 as to the time when that evidence is to be called and as
21 to any limit in relation to the giving of individual
22 evidence in each case. But plainly, with such a large
23 number of deceased, a fair amount of time will have to
24 be set aside for that background evidence to be called.
25 But Mr Smith has asked the bereaved families to

55

1 provide additional witness statements dealing with
2 personal matters such as the backgrounds to the
3 deceased, their personal qualifications, their qualities
4 and the future plans that they had and he's asked them
5 to respond by the end of July.
6 Those who are represented will of course be assisted
7 by their lawyers in acceding to Mr Smith's request.
8 Those who are not will, as ever, be assisted by the
9 Inquest team, and Mr Smith and his colleagues are
10 available to assist them in that process. That will
11 then give enough time, we hope, for those witnesses to
12 be contacted and arrangements to be made for their
13 attendance in the autumn.
14 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Does anybody have any comment?
15 I should say that I will of course ensure that those who
16 are unrepresented -- indeed, if there are any survivors
17 here who wish to make any comments, at a later stage
18 I will be asking if you have any comments. At the
19 moment, I am just checking whether any of the lawyers
20 have any comments on those particular issues?
21 Thank you.
22 Submissions re discrete issues
23 MR KEITH: Madam, turning back to the list of matters, there
24 are a number of discrete issues, the first of which is
25 body mapping.

56

1 Madam, as you've heard, in relation to a number of
2 deceased, perhaps 17 or so whose names were set out in
3 our main written submissions for the purposes of the
4 last hearing, there will be an issue as to whether or
5 not they might have survived if they had received more
6 prompt or different medical attention.
7 It will, therefore, become necessary for the extent
8 of the injuries suffered by those persons to be explored
9 in some detail.
10 Theoretically, it is of course open to you to
11 receive evidence, photographic evidence, exhibiting the
12 nature and extent of the injuries that they suffered.
13 It might also have been necessary for you to receive
14 photographs of the body parts as well as post-mortem
15 photographs, but that process would, of course, be
16 deeply and needlessly distressing, and, therefore, you
17 will recall that you commissioned Mr Smith to approach
18 the Metropolitan Police Service to see whether or not
19 computer-generated images of the bodies could be
20 constructed in such a way that the actual injuries that
21 they suffered prior to death could be identified from
22 those computer-generated images rather than through
23 examination of the actuality of the photographs.
24 That process is continuing and we await
25 a provisional preliminary report from the department

57

1 that is dealing with that, but I wanted to raise it at
2 this stage, lest, as a result of the issues that have
3 been addressed today, there is a concern on the part of
4 the families that the exploration of that factual issue
5 will require any kind of examination of the injuries of
6 their loved ones.
7 The fact is that we will do what we can to avoid any
8 such exploration and using body mapping is one such
9 route.
10 A similar process underpins steps taken by Mr Smith
11 to identify and put before you for your consideration
12 evidence showing the entrances to the stations. Also
13 where, following the explosions, bodies lay. It will of
14 course be necessary, in due course, to explore the
15 aftermath of the explosions, but again, if that can be
16 done in a way which avoids needless distress, then it
17 will be done so, and that process will, we anticipate,
18 involve computer-generated images in the way that I've
19 described.
20 The agenda also makes reference to an expert witness
21 on the effects of the blast. It seems to us that an
22 important issue in relation to the explosions will be
23 how it was that certain people died, whereas others, who
24 might be thought to have been closer and to have had
25 less chance of surviving the blast, in fact lived.

58

1 We would invite you to ask Mr Smith to identify and
2 instruct an expert to produce a report and to give oral
3 evidence on the effects of explosive forces in confined
4 spaces to help explain what's meant in the post-mortem
5 reports and the interim death certificates by the cause
6 of death being described as injuries caused by
7 explosion, and that impacts upon the issue that
8 Mr Patterson has raised through his written submissions
9 in relation to the effects of the blast and what steps
10 can be taken by way of medical treatment to ameliorate
11 the effects. We will await the outcome of that
12 exploration, if you deem it appropriate.
13 The next issue concerns further applications for
14 properly interested person status. An application for
15 such status has been made on behalf of the
16 Barts & London NHS Trust, which operates the helicopter
17 emergency service, and which was, in fact, the first
18 receiving hospital.
19 I believe, although I've not had a chance of
20 speaking to them today, that they are represented by
21 counsel.
22 MR FURNISS: Yes, I'm here, Richard Furniss.
23 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you.
24 MR KEITH: Madam, I have no wish to add to my submissions by
25 replicating anything that might be said on their behalf,

59

1 but if I might jump the gun for one moment, it seems to
2 us that their application is well-founded.
3 We understand that they deployed some 16 doctors in
4 over 20 relays, and it's very likely that we will be
5 inviting you to call some of them as witnesses, as they,
6 of course, form part of the integrated emergency
7 response.
8 To the extent that they have a separate corporate
9 identity to the London Ambulance Service or the London
10 Fire Brigade, it seems to us, with respect, that they
11 fall within the same category of emergency response and
12 are, therefore, entitled to status, if you deem it
13 appropriate.
14 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Furniss, I've had an opportunity
15 of reading the application and I am presently of the
16 same mind as my Inquest team, so unless there's anything
17 you wish specifically to add?
18 MR FURNISS: Thank you.
19 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Very well, thank you.
20 MR KEITH: Madam, I've said two applications, because
21 I think you received this morning or late last night
22 a further application from Great Ormond Street
23 Hospital --
24 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I did.
25 MR KEITH: -- for PIP status under Rule 20(2)(h). The

60

1 letter on their behalf makes plain that their staff
2 provided medical treatment both at the scene and, of
3 course, at the hospital itself. They provided a great
4 deal of care and some of their staff went back to the
5 hospital in order to get medical supplies to take back
6 to the scene.
7 They also took on patients afterwards, even though
8 that was contrary to the standard operating procedures,
9 which didn't identify Great Ormond Street as a first
10 responder.
11 Madam, as far as we're aware, none of the patients
12 that they received died in that hospital and their
13 response was by way of an informal first responding
14 response, and it seems to us unlikely that Great Ormond
15 Street would be the subject of any criticism in relation
16 to the steps that they took that day.
17 They do, however, identify a number of witnesses and
18 it's likely that we will be calling a number of them.
19 May I invite you, rather than determining that
20 application today, to permit Mr Smith to respond to
21 their application inviting a little more detail as to
22 why they suggest that they're entitled to PIP status
23 under Rule 20(2)(h).
24 Because they had no formal role, and because there
25 is no question that they could have done more than they

61

1 did, it seems to us that further material might be
2 required in order to justify such an application and, if
3 they respond with further detail, perhaps Mr Smith could
4 be permitted to put that application before you for your
5 response administratively.
6 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I've read the letter, Mr Keith. It
7 was, I felt, a very thoughtful and considered letter,
8 but I think you're right, I think that I need to know
9 more. Conscious as I am of having restricted other
10 parties, I think I need to check that I am really
11 satisfied that they fall into the appropriate category.
12 MR KEITH: Thank you very much.
13 Submissions re legal aid
14 There remain two final issues: legal aid and order
15 of play.
16 In relation to legal aid, we understand that no
17 agreement has yet been reached between the lawyers
18 representing the families and the Legal Services
19 Commission as to funding for phase 2, that is to say the
20 phase of the inquests that followed on from your ruling.
21 Mrs Anckorn was in touch with the Legal Services
22 Commission on 17 June and, so that everybody is aware,
23 she communicated to the Commission your concern that the
24 lack of agreement as to funding may start to impact upon
25 the timetable that you have set.

62

1 So may I today simply flag up this issue for you to
2 make enquiries of the lawyers for the families where we
3 are with legal aid?
4 It doesn't seem to us with respect that there should
5 be any insuperable bars to an agreement being reached,
6 but we acknowledge that there are obviously difficult
7 issues concerning funding to be circumnavigated.
8 The way in which the reports have been served,
9 however, is such that the lawyers, as well as the Legal
10 Services Commission, now have available not only the
11 list of provisional factual issues, but also the vast
12 majority of the witness statements relating to the
13 scenes. That, of course, is the matter which most
14 engages the Legal Services Commission, because it forms
15 such a huge part of the funding requirements going on.
16 Therefore, it does seem to us that there's no reason
17 why agreement cannot be reached and we would invite you
18 to make enquiries as to how long it's anticipated such
19 agreement -- or how much time would be needed before
20 such an agreement may be reached.
21 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Who's going first? Mr Coltart, are
22 you going first?
23 MR COLTART: I'm very happy to go first, madam.
24 We don't know how long it's going to take,
25 unfortunately. That's a question, really, which perhaps

63

1 only Mr Baker could answer at the Legal Services
2 Commission.
3 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: It's not just Mr Baker, to be fair.
4 Mr Baker, of course, has certain responsibilities, but
5 everybody has to get together, don't they?
6 MR COLTART: Yes, they do. I respectfully agree. I don't
7 seek to attribute any criticism at all to Mr Baker,
8 who's been highly cooperative in his dealings with us to
9 date. A detailed proposal was put to him by way of
10 letter on 11 June, which --
11 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Dividing labour, as it were?
12 MR COLTART: Yes, suggesting a division of labour, at least
13 in principle, as to different topics which could be
14 dealt with by different firms and different
15 representatives, although the attribution of firm to
16 a particular task hasn't yet been decided upon, the
17 principle of the matter has been put to the Legal
18 Services Commission.
19 We've been told that that proposal is being
20 considered sympathetically by the Legal Services
21 Commission in correspondence which has since been
22 received from them.
23 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Was that a letter from
24 Kingsley Napley or was that an agreed letter on behalf
25 of all solicitors?

64

1 MR COLTART: It was a letter that was sent by
2 Kingsley Napley, certainly agreed by Hogan, Lovells,
3 Russell Jones Walker and Sonn Macmillan Walker, and in
4 fairness to Oury Clark, which was the fifth firm
5 involved, Mr Tibber who is the principal partner from
6 that firm, as you know, madam, he was away from the
7 office at the time that that letter was sent, but
8 I don't know whether he may be in a position, through
9 counsel today, to indicate his agreement to the approach
10 which has been suggested. I'm not aware of any
11 difficulty with it.
12 It's that letter to which a substantive response is
13 now awaited.
14 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Is it permissible for me to see the
15 letter?
16 MR COLTART: Yes, of course.
17 MR O'CONNOR: We have agreed it, madam, since.
18 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: You have? Thank you, Mr O'Connor.
19 (Handed).
20 Well, skim-read, Mr Coltart, but it appears to be
21 a sensible approach, if I may say so.
22 MR COLTART: I'm grateful, and Mr Baker, in fairness to him,
23 has been in touch since this letter was sent to clarify
24 one or two points of detail by email which have been
25 clarified for him, and we hope now to receive

65

1 a substantive response from the LSC shortly.
2 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: But you then have another major
3 problem. Just supposing -- as I say, I haven't really
4 had an opportunity to assess the way you've categorised
5 the issue, so it may be the LSC would have comments
6 about it, I know not, and I'm not giving my stamp of
7 approval because, as I say, it's only skim-read. But
8 just supposing the LSC accepted the categories you set
9 out, you then have the big problem, do you not, as to
10 which firm leads on which issue?
11 MR COLTART: Yes. That's a matter to be discussed, of
12 course, between the firms as well as in correspondence
13 with the LSC.
14 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: When is that going to happen?
15 MR COLTART: Madam, would you forgive me for one moment
16 because there has been some discussion on this topic
17 this week, I just want to make sure I have the most
18 up-to-date position?
19 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Please.
20 MR COLTART: Madam, there was some talk of a meeting taking
21 place this week to discuss that topic. The decision
22 which was taken for the time being, at least, was that
23 it may be premature to be discussing and dividing up
24 between the firms the relevant topics before we know
25 whether the LSC will agree, even in principle, to the

66

1 approach which has been suggested.
2 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Coltart, I've made my views plain
3 to Mr Hall about anything that may impact upon my
4 timetable. I think it's only fair that what's sauce for
5 the goose is sauce for the gander.
6 MR COLTART: Yes.
7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: If we wait until we have firm
8 decisions on -- this is all going round and round.
9 Everything becomes circular.
10 MR COLTART: Yes.
11 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: The material is being disclosed by my
12 team, ready for the interested parties to consider, and
13 if we don't at least have some agreement between the
14 firms, I can see my coming back on 23 July and being
15 told, "Well, we're fighting over who's going to deal
16 with such and such an issue, because we don't want to
17 have the X issue, we want to have the Y issue", and I'm
18 just not going to put up with it, to be honest.
19 I appreciate you're receiving my comments only
20 because you were brave enough to stand up first, but
21 this matter has to be resolved.
22 MR COLTART: Yes, I'm grateful for those observations.
23 They're clearly received, of course, by all the parties
24 present in court on behalf of the families and we will
25 expedite that issue as quickly as we can.

67

1 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: It's your lay clients' interests that
2 are at the heart here --
3 MR COLTART: Yes, of course.
4 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: -- because, if you can't all agree,
5 and of course with the LSC, and I appreciate you have to
6 negotiate with them, but if this isn't agreed, the
7 people who are truly going to suffer are going to be the
8 people whom you all represent.
9 MR COLTART: Yes, of course.
10 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Hence my anxiety to keep matters
11 proceeding apace.
12 MR COLTART: Thank you.
13 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Everybody has heard what I've said.
14 Mr O'Connor?
15 MR O'CONNOR: Madam, we proposed that there should be
16 a meeting this week and that we shouldn't wait for
17 a response from the Legal Services Commission, and we
18 hope that everyone will now agree with that under your
19 encouragement.
20 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: If they don't agree with it and if
21 there's no progress by the 23rd, I shall be asking some
22 even sterner questions.
23 Yes, Mr Saunders?
24 MR SAUNDERS: Can I correct one matter? Because I'm not
25 sure, madam, whether you are aware there is

68

1 a fundamental problem. Mr Baker's original view was
2 only four firms should continue and that's why I think
3 the rest of the team said "Until Mr Baker deals with the
4 principal position of will five continue, it is going to
5 be impossible to consider issues as is set out in
6 Mr Chapman's letter on behalf of all the parties until
7 we've got to that stage".
8 So that's why, madam. I don't want you or anybody
9 else to be under the impression that it's not
10 a willingness by the five firms to try to proceed; it is
11 because we haven't had the decision from Mr Baker yet on
12 the fundamental issue: can five continue?
13 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I note that Kingsley Napley have been
14 able to identify five specific issues or main headings,
15 so surely the first matter that the parties have to do
16 is to persuade the LSC that these are truly five
17 headings of issues. As I say, I haven't had an
18 opportunity to consider myself whether, if I were
19 responsible for funding, I would agree they were, but
20 surely that's the first matter?
21 But in the meantime, can there not be discussions
22 between the parties as to whether there's any particular
23 heading here that any particular group of lawyers are
24 best able to deal with, given their experience and
25 background?

69

1 MR SAUNDERS: There is, of course, the other difficulty that
2 some of the firms have more than one site. So there are
3 things, I can promise you, that have been discussed
4 between both the solicitors and counsel over the months
5 that we've all now been engaged, so we are moving and
6 trying as best as we can to reach some agreement before
7 Mr Baker comes back to us.
8 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Well, Mr Saunders, you have said it,
9 the "months" that everyone has now been engaged. As
10 I say, what I said to Mr Hall applies to everybody else.
11 I want progress and I intend to keep making progress.
12 So would the parties please ensure -- you're all
13 here today, we've had two days set aside for this
14 hearing, can we please make sure that progress is made
15 before people leave this building?
16 MR SAUNDERS: Thank you.
17 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you. Does anybody else have
18 anything to say in relation to legal aid?
19 Right. Mr Keith, is there anything else we can do
20 on that front?
21 Submissions re provisional order for calling evidence
22 MR KEITH: Madam, no. The next point, which is the order of
23 play, might have some indirect impact, because it may be
24 that, whatever funding structure is put into place may
25 depend upon the order in which you call evidence, and it

70

1 may be that one way of breaking the log jam is to put
2 into place funding for the first part without prejudice
3 to what might come thereafter.
4 But in any event, Mr Beggs, in the course of
5 submissions this morning, invited you to clarify the
6 provisional order in which the various issues would be
7 addressed.
8 For our part, we would not wish to express
9 a definitive view at this early stage, because it might
10 be counterproductive lest parties with disclosure
11 obligations start concentrating upon the areas that
12 I have identified might be addressed first to the
13 neglect of later areas, and it's important in principle
14 and practically that the disclosure process is
15 substantially complete, of course, before we call any
16 evidence at all.
17 But to the extent that I can, perhaps I can
18 indicate, subject to your approval, that it's likely
19 that we would call witnesses relating to the issues of
20 the travel to London followed by the evidence in
21 relation to the scenes. Each of those areas would also
22 include the question of background evidence, to which
23 I've already made reference in relation to each of the
24 52 deceased, and then, only when the historical picture
25 is established, would we then turn, it's likely, to the

71

1 background to the four men and to the issue of forensics
2 associated with the explosion of the bombs. The generic
3 issues concerning preventability and emergency response
4 would, we provisionally anticipate, be dealt with after
5 that, but I'm afraid, further than that, I can't really,
6 with respect, go at this stage.
7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Right.
8 Does anybody have any comments on -- yes, Mr Hill?
9 MR HILL: I make two comments: one is an observation and the
10 other, I'm afraid, rather rudely, is going to be
11 a question I will put on a hypothetical basis.
12 The observation is: emergency response, of course,
13 we all understand is the post-event preventability
14 issue, as I think we were calling it in April. But
15 given that the scene evidence, unless we misunderstand
16 the proposal, is going to include a detailed
17 consideration of the tragedy in respect of the 52
18 innocent lives lost, we wonder -- we simply raise this
19 for further consideration -- whether preventability in
20 terms of medical response will come naturally at the
21 time at which each of the 52 deceased and events
22 surrounding their deaths is being considered.
23 So although we completely understand how the generic
24 issues currently appear at the end of the list, we
25 wonder, on further reflection, and subject to disclosure

72

1 and further preparation, whether the emergency response
2 part of the generic issues might actually be promoted up
3 the order to come at, say, the conclusion of the scene
4 evidence. Otherwise, we beg to question, it may be the
5 case that we will all have to focus our attention on
6 particular lost life. We'll then come back to that
7 particular lost life, hypothetically times 52, at
8 a later stage, where it might be better to deal with it
9 at one time.
10 Now, that's a first brush approach, and it may be
11 that, on reflection, it's not sensible, but we thought
12 it right to raise it.
13 That's the first point, and that's hiding the second
14 point, which it may be I am the first to raise, but,
15 frankly, I suspect we all want to know, and that is we
16 are very grateful to have a provisional order. It will
17 all be going from a fixed point. We would be very
18 grateful to know what that fixed starting point is, if
19 indeed there is one.
20 So if, for example, travel to London was the first
21 evidence to be called, and if, for example, taking what
22 I think is the first full and unencumbered week at the
23 start of next term, that was putatively 11 October and
24 following, without in any way giving a cushion for
25 considering disclosure issues which we, for one,

73

1 wouldn't take it to mean, that would mean in terms of
2 planning and representation for the evidence phase of
3 this hearing we might know if working from, say,
4 11 October on travel and scene evidence, that
5 preventability pre-event, pre-detonation, is not
6 something on any view that could be reached before, say,
7 1 November.
8 I don't know whether you and your team are yet in
9 a position to confirm the start date from which we can
10 then all extrapolate, but we'd like to know, if we can.
11 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: If I were in a position to confirm
12 the start date, Mr Hill, I would have been making the
13 observations I have made to Mr Coltart, Mr Saunders and
14 Mr Hall.
15 MR HILL: Yes.
16 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: That is my concern at the moment, the
17 start date, but, Mr Keith, any comments on Mr Hill?
18 MR KEITH: Madam, yes. It is plainly important that the
19 start date be identified as soon as possible, and nor
20 can it be sensibly suggested otherwise.
21 In our view, it's not yet possible to confirm the
22 start date, because we have not yet had back
23 a sufficient number of responses in relation to
24 contactability -- if I may use such a word -- of the
25 witnesses who are likely to be the witnesses called at

74

1 the start of the inquest.
2 Nor, of course, have the properly interested persons
3 responded yet, quite understandably, in respect of their
4 disclosure obligations, and only when the substance of
5 that process is complete will we know whether or not
6 there are a substantial number of additional witnesses
7 who might be relevant to the factual issues which would
8 be addressed at the start of the inquests.
9 So it is, in short, just too early to say. But we
10 do hope -- in fact, we strongly hope -- that the answer
11 to the question on Mr Hill's lips will be clear by the
12 date of 23 July, and I have no doubt that you would wish
13 to address that point in any event then.
14 In relation to the first point raised by Mr Hill, in
15 general terms, as I've already said, I don't know that
16 much can be achieved by detailing further the order in
17 which evidence might provisionally be called. It is
18 just too soon. But I made no mention, in fact, of the
19 potential medical evidence in relation to the potential
20 survivors.
21 The last point, generic issues, concerns the generic
22 issues surrounding the emergency response, but it's
23 likely that we would call specific medical evidence in
24 relation to those specific deceased in relation to whom
25 it might be said that they might have survived if

75

1 medical attention had been more promptly provided at the
2 time that we call the evidence in relation to the
3 explosions at the scenes, rather than as part of any
4 generic issues which will arise at the end.
5 In that way, Mr Hill's concerns that particular
6 deceased are addressed both in relation to background
7 evidence, tragically their death and the issue of
8 whether or not they might have survived, all at the same
9 time, but any other issues relating to the emergency
10 response would be dealt with under the generic heading
11 at the end. But I'm afraid I can't commit any further
12 than that at this stage because it is just too soon, as
13 I've said.
14 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Any other comments on that matter?
15 MR MORTON: Madam, on behalf of Transport for London, may
16 I make one observation about the order of issues?
17 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Yes, of course.
18 MR MORTON: While appreciating entirely the point my learned
19 friend makes about not making a final decision at this
20 stage, may I just observe this: that preventability in
21 the sense set out in the list of issues at items 13
22 through to 22, broadly speaking the role of the
23 Security Services, that's an entire area in which we
24 anticipate we will have no role to play at all. I also
25 anticipate that there will be other interested persons

76

1 who similarly take the same view.
2 That being so, it would certainly help us, I think,
3 and I suspect others, if that was dealt with as
4 a discrete issue and preferably at the end, that's to
5 say after everything else, so that we can simply absent
6 ourselves from that part of the hearing.
7 I simply raise that at this stage for consideration.
8 It would certainly help us, if that were the case.
9 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: We're very conscious of the effect
10 upon everybody of knowing -- West Yorkshire Police, for
11 example, presumably only want to be involved in that
12 part, so we're very conscious that the parties will wish
13 to know exactly where they stand and I think all we can
14 do is assure you that we'll get decisions to you as soon
15 as we possibly can.
16 MR MORTON: Thank you very much.
17 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Keith, as people have been
18 speaking, I've just been casting my eye over
19 Mr Chapman's letter in relation to funding. I'm just
20 wondering if there's any way we can assist the process
21 before people leave.
22 I haven't had an opportunity to consider
23 Mr Chapman's proposed groupings or categories of issues.
24 I'm not immediately persuaded that they necessarily are
25 the correct way to describe them. It may be that if

77

1 I discussed it with Mr Chapman, I would find we do have
2 in mind the same things. I'm just looking at the
3 headings and I'm not quite sure.
4 I was just wondering whether there's any way the
5 Inquest team could assist the other parties before they
6 leave in whether or not -- or what groups of issues at
7 the moment you are all working towards to see if that
8 might then assist them in their negotiations with the
9 LSC.
10 MR KEITH: Madam, yes. In principle, you have previously
11 taken the position, as have your team, that it would not
12 be appropriate for yourself, or it, to engage in the
13 substantive issues between the Legal Services
14 Commission --
15 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I'm not talking about engaging in
16 whether or not they get funding. What I'm suggesting is
17 that you have a preliminary, without prejudice
18 discussion on: if you had to group the issues, how you
19 might group them and how you might well be grouping them
20 as you prepare for the inquest yourself.
21 MR KEITH: Madam, yes.
22 We found, in truth, when we became aware of the
23 correspondence between the lawyers for the families and
24 the Legal Services Commission, that it was impossible to
25 comment upon the propriety and sense of the decisions

78

1 expressed in Kingsley Napley's letter of 11 June without
2 becoming engaged, perhaps unwisely, in a full debate as
3 to how responsibility should be divided between the
4 teams and, indeed, as to how many lawyers' firms should
5 be engaged.
6 It might perhaps be thought to be invidious if we
7 were to lend any support to any argument which directly
8 or indirectly led to the exclusion from these
9 proceedings of one of the lawyers.
10 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I'm not seeking that, Mr Keith, I'm
11 just trying to see whether we can get things going.
12 MR KEITH: Madam, perhaps I can invite you to do this: if
13 the parties themselves feel able to identify discrete
14 points arising out of the proposed division of evidence
15 and the way in which evidence might be called that they
16 feel is amenable to expression of views by your team or
17 by yourself, in a way that doesn't engage us in a more
18 deadly debate about the wider issues, then perhaps you
19 could invite us to consider those issues. But I think
20 further than that I would be very unwilling to tread,
21 lest it had undesirable consequences.
22 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Wise words, Mr Keith. I wonder if
23 I could ask you and the rest of the team and indeed all
24 other parties who are interested in this particular
25 topic to stay behind. This courtroom has been set aside

79

1 for our use. The time has been set aside. Just to see
2 whether or not you and Mr O'Connor and Mr Hay and
3 Mr Smith feel that, with propriety, you can in any way
4 assist on how the issues may or may not conveniently be
5 categorised without in any way offering a view as to how
6 many lawyers should be involved or who should be doing
7 what issue.
8 MR KEITH: Certainly.
9 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: If you can assist. If you can't, of
10 course I'll understand. You must plainly maintain your
11 independence.
12 MR KEITH: Of course, we would be delighted to do so.
13 Madam, one final matter arises out of the
14 submissions this morning.
15 In the course of my submissions, I referred to your
16 team being granted unconditional access to the material
17 at Thames House. I did so meaning that we should be
18 granted access to the material that was offered, namely,
19 the ISC report in an unconditional way, that is to say
20 with full access to that report, and the redacted
21 material --
22 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: But on conditions.
23 MR KEITH: But on the condition that it doesn't go further.
24 Indeed I had made plain, I thought, in the course of my
25 submissions, that it had to be subject to any future PII

80

1 process. Mr Hall is troubled by my reference to
2 "unconditional" in that context, so let me assure him
3 that I did not intend to suggest that we would take that
4 report and disclose it onwards without any further PII
5 applications.
6 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: No, Mr Hall, I'm sure you are aware,
7 I did note your conditions, and I am grateful to you and
8 to those who instruct you for the approach that you have
9 adopted in relation to that material. I think it will
10 help considerably in getting the process moving.
11 MR KEITH: Madam, that's all that I intended to raise.
12 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Right, first of all, I'll ask --
13 before I turn to the lawyers, I don't know if there are
14 any unrepresented families, bereaved families, present
15 who wish to say anything, wish to make any comments.
16 I don't know whether there are any survivors present
17 who wish to say anything, because I wish to emphasise,
18 as I hoped I had in my ruling, that in ruling that there
19 shouldn't be interested persons, I did not intend in any
20 way to exclude them, and if they have any lines of
21 enquiry or any questions they wish to propose, then they
22 are always free to send their comments to Mr Smith and,
23 indeed, if anybody is here today who wishes to say
24 anything, I'll hear them now.
25 Thank you very much. Right, as far as the lawyers

81

1 are concerned?
2 Mr Coltart, are you going first again?
3 MR COLTART: Madam, only one matter. Can we assume, madam,
4 that you have heard no further communication from those
5 representing the bombers in this matter?
6 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Not that I'm aware of, no. The last
7 I think we heard -- Mr Smith will confirm -- is I think,
8 as everyone knew the public funding had been refused,
9 they were considering whether an attempt could be made
10 to challenge that, but I don't think we've heard
11 anything since.
12 MR COLTART: I'm grateful, thank you.
13 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you.
14 Anything further, Mr O'Connor?
15 MR O'CONNOR: Nothing to say, madam.
16 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Mr Patterson?
17 MR PATTERSON: No thank you, madam.
18 MS SHEFF: No thank you, madam.
19 MR SAUNDERS: Nothing, thank you.
20 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Very well. Thank you all very much.
21 I shall be in the building obviously for the rest of the
22 day, so if there are any other matters that require my
23 attention, I'm perfectly happy to return. Thank you
24 all.
25 (12.15 pm)

82

1 (The hearing adjourned until 23rd July)
2
3

83

1 INDEX
2 PAGE
3 Submissions re 21 May ruling ..................................1
4 Submissions re issues arising out letter of 27 May ......9
5 Submissions re scene reports ............................. .44
6 Submissions re contacting witnesses .....................50
7 Submissions re discrete issues ..............................56
8 Submissions re legal aid .......................................62
9 Submissions re provisional order for calling evidence...70

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