געדענק צו שרייבען דיין נאמען און אדדרעססTO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Dear Sir/Madam,
Inflexible, Intractable and Inadequate Coroner Service
I am writing to you to complain about the conduct of Ms Mary Hassell ("MH"), the Senior Coroner for Inner North London, in connection with her conduct towards the Jewish community in North London.
I am concerned about her conduct, because of my religious faith, and the impact her actions have on my right and the right of other members of the Jewish community to freely practice that faith. Insofar as her conduct impacts on the ability of people of other faiths, particularly Muslims, to practice their faith, I write also in support of their right to practice their faith.
According to the Jewish faith (as in the Muslim faith) it is an important principle that a dead person should be buried as soon as possible after death, and ideally the day of death. Jews believe that the soul of the deceased suffers until the burial.
It is therefore customary amongst the Orthodox Jewish Community to make every effort to expedite the burial, with the family being prepared to go to great expense to this end.
In addition, until after the funeral, the close members of the family cannot begin to go through the mourning process – which is known as “sitting shiva” – where friends and family come to visit the relatives of the deceased. As is well known, this is an important part of the healing process for the family. As this does not commence until after the burial has taken place the family also suffers greatly from any delay. The suffering and anguish caused by a delay in burial are hard to adequately express in writing, but it is widely and deeply felt.
Over the past four and a half years, bereaved relatives of deaths in the North and Inner London areas have been subjected to increased bureaucracy and difficulties. Unlike previous coroners or fellow coroners now in all other areas, the coroners' office covering Camden, Hackney, Islington & Tower Hamlets, which also includes several major hospitals treating patients from further areas, MH has steadily and incrementally imposed rules and inflexible procedures primarily designed to benefit her and her staff while effectively reducing their service to the public.
1) MH's first awkward decree was to strictly cease all availability over weekends or outside strict office hours, which obviously increased regular delays and frustration. Recent newspaper reports confirm incredible delays and frustrations, which were only resolved by outside interventions!
2) MH shows less regard for ethnic or religious sensitivities than previous or other coroners, and many of her imposed rules, bureaucracy, inflexibility and unnecessary delays offend traditional and/or religious practices and periodically force ethnic groups into legal challenges to protect many hitherto assumed civil and religious rights. Other coroner offices, knowing of some religious obligations for prompt burials, demonstrate flexibility in prioritizing these where possible but MH’s office seems to make a habit of delaying them, notwithstanding that she knows this causes immense anguish and trauma for relatives. Indeed in a letter dated 30 October 2017 addressed to Asserson Law Office MH wrote, "No death will be prioritized in any way over any other because of the religion of the deceased or family".
3) Unlike previous procedures MH has now arbitrarily refused to allow members of the Jewish community the use of private mortuaries in order to watch over/guard such bodies whose deaths are reportable to HMC Inner North London, where they could perform traditional cultural or religious practices until burial, notwithstanding her knowing that facilities in public mortuaries are not suitable for such practices. This shows MH’s total and deliberate disregard for the tenets of the Jewish religion and to the legal rights of Jews to manifest their religion.
4) In 2015, MH lost a judicial review when she insisted that a Jewish woman have an invasive autopsy, which is against the Orthodox law. In losing the court case MH was ordered to pay 90% of the family’s legal costs and presumably also paid the costs of instructing her own lawyers to fight the case. Those bills, estimated at over £200,000, was paid by council taxpayers in north and east London. This is in addition to other legal costs incurred by the taxpayers for various injunctions in recent years.
5) In 2016, MH was formally reprimanded by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office for publicising a letter in which she alleged that she was being bullied by the Jewish community.
We live in a country that prides itself on its diversity and multi-culturalism. According to the Human Rights Act every individual has the right to practice their religion freely. However, when it comes to the religious rights of Jews and Muslims to be buried according to their custom and tradition, that right is deliberately not upheld, by the conduct of MH.
For all these, and other reasons, we have been left with no other choice but to ask that this problem be removed from this sensitive area and for the Coroner Service to be reinstated to its previous status of helpful, amenable and flexible service as available everywhere else in order to bring a halt to MH’s constant breach of the law and for the service again to serve the needs of the community.
Yours faithfully,
Name:
Address:
