Northern Ireland's Court of Appeal has quashed a coroner's decision requiring the next of kin of a man who died at the Royal Victoria Hospital in 2018 to produce an expert psychiatric report obtained for the purposes of an ongoing inquest. The court found that Coroner Toal had misdirected herself on the applicable legal test and remitted the matter for reconsideration.

The case concerns the death of Stephen Moore, who was found dead at the Royal Victoria Hospital on 27 September 2018. The presumed cause of death was recorded as suicide by hanging, traumatic rib fractures and delirium. An inquest was ordered on 27 November 2019, with Coroner Toal assuming conduct of the proceedings on 16 November 2020. The inquest remains unresolved.

The dispute arose after the appellant, Margaret Drake, who is next of kin of the deceased, obtained a report from a psychiatric expert, Dr Hussain. In April 2025 she informed the coroner she did not intend to produce that report. The coroner issued a notice on 2 May 2025 under section 17A of the Coroners Act (Northern Ireland) 1959 requiring production of the report. When Drake applied for the notice to be revoked, the coroner refused in a further ruling dated 12 May 2025. A judicial review challenge was dismissed at first instance by McLaughlin J, prompting the appeal.

The Court of Appeal, comprising Keegan LCJ, Colton LJ and Humphreys J, identified a specific legal error in the coroner's approach. The coroner had indicated that after receiving the report she would conduct a further balancing exercise to decide whether to pass it on to the other properly interested persons in the inquest, namely the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. The court found this was wrong. Because the case had already moved beyond the stage of determining scope and witnesses, and because the next of kin had not relied on public interest immunity as a basis for objection, no two-stage process applied. The coroner was required to carry out a full balancing exercise at the point of deciding whether to revoke the notice, not after receiving the report.

The court held that the operative provisions are sections 17A(4)(b) and 17A(5) of the 1959 Act, which require a coroner considering whether to revoke a production notice to weigh the public interest in obtaining the information against the objecting party's interest, with regard to the likely importance of the information. The court said the coroner was wrong to defer part of that exercise to a later stage, describing this as taking into account an immaterial consideration.

The court also found that McLaughlin J fell into error at first instance by placing weight on public interest immunity authorities that were not relevant to the circumstances, since Drake had not relied on public interest immunity. The court said those cases arose in a different context and had overcomplicated the central issue.

The court noted the inquest had already been delayed by approximately one year as a result of the litigation. It also noted that a further complication had arisen, with the coroner's own expert potentially unable to attend the inquest due to medical issues, which the court observed might require a further report to be obtained. The matter has been remitted to the coroner for reconsideration in line with the legal principles set out in the judgment. The inquest had previously proceeded on two of the scheduled hearing dates in May 2025, with only the expert evidence remaining to be heard.