The chief coroner and suicide reporting
Sifting through the evidence: improving suicide reporting
An interview with Chief Coroner Judge Neil MacLean
by Chris Banks
“What coroners deal with is the truth, telling it like it is,” Judge MacLean says. “Forget about the mystery, forget about the rumours and speculation, here are the facts. Now, make of it what you will.
“Almost everybody has a personal story to tell about a friend or a relative or someone they know who committed suicide. It’s one of the taboo topics that we’re never very specific about. It was sort of something to be embarrassed and ashamed about.
“I think, unpalatable though it is, more discussion, more accurate information, can only be for the better.
"The Coroners Act 2006 has very clear stipulations about the reporting of suicide: a death cannot be reported publicly as a suicide unless it has been ruled as such by a coroner. If a death is ruled to be a suicide after an inquest, the level of detail released publicly is at the coroner’s discretion."
It is about this particular area – post-inquest – that Judge MacLean’s references to “more accurate information” are being made. But how much information should be released, and in what context?
Coroners are appointed judicial officers who investigate and identify the causes and circumstances following certain types of deaths, particularly those that are sudden and/or unexplained. Part of their investigation involves making recommendations to the public on how the chances of similar deaths recurring in the future may be prevented.
In addition to the chief coroner, there are 14 coroners based in nine locations throughout New Zealand. Each works within a specific geographic region.
The chief coroner works with coroners and their support staff to promote consistency of practice throughout the country, and raise professionalism. The integrity and effectiveness of the services coroners provide reside with this role.
Neil MacLean is a district court judge. He was a partner in three Christchurch law practices between 1972 and 1993. Before his appointment to the District Court Bench, Judge MacLean served as the Christchurch Coroner from 1978 to 1993.
He has continued to carry out inquests since his judicial appointment, usually for complex matters or where a second inquest has been directed, or where another coroner has a conflict of interest. He also assisted in the preparation of the Coroner's Manual 1988 and provided consultative information to the chief judge regarding the Coroners Act 2006.
In 2006, the coronial system in New Zealand underwent a major overhaul. The Law Commission in 2000 identified a number of issues with the existing system, which were seen to be undermining public confidence in the integrity of the system.
The new act:
- Created the position of chief coroner, of which Judge MacLean was the first.
- Replaced 55 mostly part-time coroners with up to 20 legally qualified full-time coroners.
- Established the Coronial Services Unit, which deals directly with families and provides a dedicated support service of case management, court taking, typing of findings and recommendations, and transcription of evidence.
The suicde reporting debate
“There is a wide range of views. On the one hand there is still a group which says you shouldn’t actually allow anything at all, you shouldn’t even talk about it.
“There’s another side, which I think could be said is basically the mainstream media view in New Zealand and in Australia, that [says] – look, you can trust us. We are human beings ourselves. We don’t want to find out that someone committed suicide because of the crass way we wrote up a story. But for heaven’s sake let us publish it.
“I speak to various organisations all round the country and the feedback I get is, ‘thank goodness someone’s saying what you’re saying. We welcome this being discussed.'
“And then of course comes the often quite difficult area where people will get up, and often – I suspect for the first time in their life, in front of a hundred other people – start to tell the story about their son, their daughter, their father."
Bad reporting
“Whatever restrictions there may be, what we don’t want is inquest by media. The thing being played out before it’s even come before a coroner.
“And, as I’ve seen on some programmes, going to the park where the person, say, hanged themselves, having an in-depth interview with the grieving mother who’s still struggling with the reality of it, and in a very vulnerable state herself. That’s not responsible reporting in my view.
“You can’t start talking about something as a suicide before it’s got to the coroner, in fact you can’t really say anything about it before it goes to the coroner. Media should not be speculating about guilt or innocence, cause and effect, that sort of thing – because we have institutions, ie, the courts, that actually will decide that in a calm, dispassionate and objective way – on evidence.
“Constantly media are pushing the boundaries in this area. We remonstrate with them, and I’ve spoken with the Freedom In Media group, [saying] make sure your sub editors and your journalists do understand what the law is, and that they can’t just start talking about a suicide or a presumed suicide without the permission of the coroner."
After an inquest – more open discussion
“After there’s been the inquest, you can basically only publish what the coroner authorises to be published.
“I’m [now] suggesting to coroners as they grapple with the higher threshold in the 2006 [Coroners] Act that [says] they must be satisfied that it will not cause harm to the public; to turn around and say – would it be beneficial for there to be publication of this amount, or all of, what I’ve just said and heard in court?
“What I’m picking up increasingly now is, families are asking for that. In the past they’ve been saying – please, this is a personal private tragedy, please don’t publish anything, could you even restrict publication of the name. That’s starting to change.
“They will often say we don’t want this to ever happen to other parents in a comparable situation."
How to prevent suicide – more information
“Parents need to know – what are the warning signs? Of course the problem is, what is normal behaviour in an adolescent young man? Parents need to get some help in knowing what’s ok, but what is ringing warning bells.
“To an adult, the apparent catalyst appears quite trivial, and you look at it and say, why on earth would that drive that person to take that final ultimate step? Because the reality is, you have to go back down the journey, the life journey, [because] it’s been building up to something that’s been going on.
“[People are saying] we’d like someone to tell us what we can do, we’d love to help, but we don’t know how to help.
“As a chief coroner, or a coroner, we’re not the experts in suicide prevention. Our job is [to say] this is what’s going on. We are no better qualified than anybody to say what the right answer is.
“What we can say is, these factors have emerged in this particular case. We can begin to identify, where did it go wrong? Where did this person start to descend or spiral down to the stage where they took their own life?”
