This post concerns a very interesting legal update about a tragic case in Merseyside, still working its way through the inquest process.
In April 2023, Merseyside Police had contact with 26-year old Mr James Farley after members of the public called officers to a car park in Bootle where he was seen at height and giving cause for concern. Police officers attended and spoke with Mr Farley who was described as being apologetic and a little embarrassed to have caused the need for such a response. After speaking with him, officers were satisfied it was appropriate to escort Mr Farley from the car park and he went on his way.
Within 20-minutes he had accessed the top of another nearby car park and fell to his death, leading to the need for an inquest which has not yet been held.
In October 2024, the Coroner made certain key decisions about the conduct of the inquest and informed the “interested parties”, which included Mr Farley’s brother, David Ferguson, as well as the Chief Constable of Merseyside and Mersey Care mental health trust.
Those decisions were –
- the inquest would not be an “article 2 inquest” and
- there would be no jury.
The Coroner ruled the UK state’s obligation to Mr Farley was not met because the operational duty did not apply – this is the “immediate risk to life” stuff we often hear about and which I’ve covered elsewhere on this blog. As such, the Coroner was moving towards what is known as a “rolled up” inquest when Mr Ferguson applied to the High Court, seeking judicial review of the Coroner’s decisions. Accepting completely, I was forming a view about these things as I was reading a judgment which I already knew went against the Coroner, I was somewhat surprised to read the Coroner’s original decision and the rationale for it.
THE HIGH COURT
Mrs Justice Hill quashed the Coroner’s decisions in a recent ruling which is extremely interesting to me for a few different reasons. It shows how a Coroner went about rationalising decisions not to hold an “Article 2 inquest” and it might be worth going over the Article 2 stuff again, because it not only applies to how Coroners should think about their inquest decision-making, but also about how officers (and other state professionals) should go about their operational-decision making. The question for the Coroner doesn’t arise at all, unless it comes from questions about how the officers policed an incident (or how other state agencies responded) where someone eventually lost their life.
In this case, the Coroner explained the state’s duty was not engaged because the officers were not “in control” of the person whose Article 2 rights were being considered. Mrs Justice Hill dismissed that one fairly swiftly, pointing out officers did have available to them powers under s136 MHA, which meant they were or could be in more-or-less instant control of the situation if they wished and were in the process of deciding whether to use such powers – accordingly, they had control of the situation and the operational duty was engaged. Equally importantly, this judgment reminds us of what was said in the Rabone case, which the judge cited, by pointing out that even a 5% risk of suicide is neither “trivial” nor “fanciful” and represents a real and immediate risk to life which is “present and continuing” and I would argue this point is key for many of the PFD notices emerging from Coroner’s courts in the last two years about RCRP.
This judgment contains a lot of detail from a report by Merseyside Police’s Professional Standards Department and it shows us PSD asked two specialist officers in Merseyside for their opinion on how the incident was handled. Sergeant Shelley, supervisor on the street triage team, stated there were positive aspects in the police response, but also some shortcomings. On the question of whether s136 could or should have been used, Sgt Shelley said, “the decision not to implement S136 of the Mental Health Act is acceptable“. Advice was also sought from Constable Sherwen, the force’s long-standing mental health liaison officer who did certain checks with the MH trust and outlined that Mr Farley was a patient of theirs and if they’d known about the presentation on the car, they would have wanted him seen by a mental health professional for proper assessment.
ARTICLE 2 INQUEST
As the inquest is still pending, I’ll keep my opinions to myself but I hope to find the Coroner explores the relevant issues and probes the evidence and opinions given so far. Ultimately here, we have a vulnerable man and a known mental health patient, on a roof, hearing voices and drinking alcohol in the morning time, having been seen to be agitated and punching the ground with imminent access to lethal means of ending his life and he’s been allowed on his way without background checks being done and with questions about the quality of the response.
There is much more to this judgment than I am choosing to cover here and the detail of the explanations will be of interest to some, so I encourage those who want it to read the judgment itself. There is also a very useful and detailed, explanatory summary on the Human Rights Blog, by Jasper Gold, a barrister at 1 Crown Office Row.
I hope Mr Ferguson feels his questions will now be addressed in an Article 2 jury inquest and I’ve now added this sad case to my PhD spreadsheet and flagged it for monitoring in the coming months.
Awarded the President’s Medal, by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2025
I am not a police officer.
I try to keep this blog up to date, but inevitably over time, amendments to the law as well as court rulings and other findings from inquests and complaints processes mean it is difficult to ensure all the articles and pages remain current. Please ensure you check all legal issues in particular and take appropriate professional advice where necessary.
Government legislation website – www.legislation.gov.uk
Mental Health Cop 