NI: Judge critical of severe delays into inquest over boy’s death
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The mother of a Co Down schoolboy who died after he was given a combined measles and rubella vaccine has suffered “interminable uncertainty and delay” over a second inquest, a High Court judge has said.
Anne Coulter has been waiting for seven years for a new hearing following the death of her son, Christopher, Mr Justice McCloskey said.
“This is a conclusion which the court makes with no enthusiasm, having regard to the appalling tragedy suffered by Mrs Coulter and the seemingly interminable uncertainty and delay in her interaction with the legal system, which have been her lot ever since,” the judge said.
Christopher, from Hillsborough, died in December 1994 at the age of 15. He had been given the vaccine at school 10 days earlier, the Belfast Telegraph reports.
The first inquest, in 1995, found he died from asphyxiation as a result of a severe epileptic seizure. But as his family had no history of epilepsy, his parents believed the vaccine was instrumental in his tragic death.
In 2012, Attorney General John Larkin QC ordered a second inquest, saying the case was of “enormous public importance”.
“The court is profoundly concerned by the overall delay in this case,” Mr Justice McCloskey said.
“This matter has been hanging over the family for 24 years, a highly disturbing figure.”
As regards the family having to fund the projected legal costs, the judge said that “a sympathetic approach to the issue of costs will, I trust, be possible”.
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