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Hey all, you well? I thought that if anyone would know this, you would.
Context: this is in Scotland.
Back story: 30 years ago this year, my brother motorcycled to work as normal, but was involved in some kind of incident on the journey back in a collision with a car. Sadly, he lost his life.
The year following, what I recall as a fatal accident inquiry was held to determine the circs and make some kind of determination. This was held in the local County Court, and from memory took a few hours, with various attendees. The only real witnesses as such were the occupants of the car, a husband (driving), wife, and IIRC a small child in the back . Although I attended this, I can recall very little about it and 30 years later any real details are pretty much gone.
Its preyed on my mind for a long time, and as you would expect affected us all very deeply as a family.
I'd love to look through the findings of the inquiry, even if there's not much of detail in there.
Are records kept going back this far? Could I obtain them?
TIA
Have you tried asking the County Court where the inquiry was held?
TBH, no. I'll look into that, thanks
Emailed them a query.
Fatal Accident Inquiries are a Scottish thing.
County Courts are an English thing.
Where did your brother die? If it was in England it was likely a Coroners Inquest. If it was Scotland it would be unusual to have a Fatal Accident Inquiry for a fairly routine road accident. They are normally only used where the circumstances are unclear, there might be lessons to learn or the law explicitly requires it (e.g. a death in custody). If there was it would have been held at the Sheriff Court. In recent times all FAI findings are published on the Scottish Courts website. Your brother's case will be too long ago for that but there will be an archive somewhere - I don't think they will ever be destroyed.
I don’t think they will ever be destroyed.
Agreed – at least they shouldn't ever be destroyed. I would be very surprised if the County Court are not able to quickly resolve this (probably for a small fee).
Thanks Poly.
Accident/incident occurred in Scotland, as did the investigation and whatever it was I attended.
Thanks for all the advice. I'll let you know how things go.
codybrennan,
Ok well, it probably was a FAI then - the only other possibilities that come to mind are either a criminal prosecution of the driver or a civil case for compensation.
If you don't get a response to your email in a few days then I think a call to the relevant Sheriff Court should bear fruit, at least to signpost you to where the records are kept and how you apply to see them - I would avoid 0900-1030 as that seems to be their busiest time with cases calling before the court today. Before you dig too deep you might want to look on the Scottish Courts website and see what a FAI report is likely to contain. There might be enough to answer your questions but they are very formal and quite brief on detail (they are a summary of the conclusions rather than the evidence in full). They may include criticism of your brother. They may leave you wondering why the other driver wasn't prosecuted etc. They will sometimes refer to productions (photographs or reports) which are not included in the determination itself and which you may not be able to access (and maybe gruesome if you could). I'm not saying let sleeping dogs lie - but before you open the can of worms make sure you know its not spaghetti!
I hope you find what you are looking for. I've been in similar shoes to you so understand the unanswered questions bit.
Poly
Understood, and many thanks for the advice Poly. It was kind of you to give me this detail.
I'm sorry about your brother. It must have been very difficult for you and everyone else.
That kind of incident would often get covered by the local paper, sometimes in quite some detail. The reports would probably identify the court and exactly what the process was. If the local paper's archive isn't fully digitised through their own website, you may be able to access reports on media archives like LexisNexis or the library local to the newspaper. Librarians will be able to help you on this.
Agree also with Poly's point that some of the coverage might be challenging or confronting.
Thanks PCA
If it was high profile try news archives. For example I was involved in an incident 30 years where the press reports of the subsequent FAI are still on the Herald website.
If it is there should come up in a search easily. I tried a nickname and location and another keyword relating to the incident and it was first result on google.
This from historical fatal accident inquiries
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/fatal-accident-inquiry-records
Unfortunately It at first appears that only samples are kept, but I've not read the whole thing and this might only be fiscal records, with more detailed records held elsewhere.
Procurator Fiscal Records
We hold the following Procurator Fiscal Service records (our reference AD for Lord Advocate's Department) which can be consulted in the Historical Search Room:
records for the Procurator Fiscal Office in Banff were retained as a representative sample (AD17). They consist of:
registers of information and complaints lodged with the Procurator Fiscal from 1928
police reports and precognitions for the years 1815-1887 inclusive
from 1887 to 1967 only those years ending in a 7 were kept as the sample
from 1971 only years ending in a 1 have been kept as the sample
Back with an update.
I contacted scotcourts.gov.uk, with a general query. They responded fairly quickly to explain that these records are held by NRS in Edinburgh, and to contact them. Duly done. The response was interesting:
"
"Thank you for your enquiry regarding access to the Fatal Accident
Inquiry regarding your late brother.
Although we do hold records of FAIs in our repository, as part of a
review of their records, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
(SCTS) have asked NRS temporarily to close Sheriff Court FAI records
from 1923 to the present. Decisions regarding closure of record sets
are taken by the individual depositors, not NRS.
NRS are required to comply with requests from depositors to close
record sets that we hold on their behalf and therefore we are
regrettably unable at present to grant access to them.
Please contact the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service for further
details on this issue Contact Us (scotcourts.gov.uk)
Access to Sheriff Court FAI records during this temporary closure can
be requested under the Freedom of Information process. For further
details, see the Freedom of Information (FOI) section of our website
www.nrscotland.gov.uk/about-us/requesting-information
With apologies for not being able to provide a more positive answer to
your query at present"
So it looks as though an FoI is the only way to go at the moment, as from what I am reading this 'temporary closure' has been in place for some time.
I'll update further if/when I get info.
A FoI request isn't necessarily a terrible pathway, at least as a first pass, as it means someone will have to dig out the information for you and assemble it, instead of just metaphorically handing you the keys to a giant data warehouse and telling you to grab what you need.
Yes, as you say it makes some things a little easier. Thanks.
So, what, it's like a stocktake?
FOI requests are usually dealt with fairly well - and whilst they will probably take the full 20 working days to respond I can't see an obvious reason why they should not release the data. The interesting question might be who "holds" the data in terms of the FOI Act - NRS or Scottish Courts. I can imagine NRS saying they can't release due to Scottish Courts restriction and Scottish Courts saying they don't hold the data! I'm not sure why Scottish Courts have asked the data be removed, my guess would be they are concerned it contains personal data and is not GDPR compliant - hence why a FOI request might be OK because someone can review and redact bits of individual files but it is not practical to do that for nearly 100 years of records.
If I was in your shoes, because I am an argumentative prick, I would respond to NRS pointing out that the law does not require you to follow a "FOI" process - every request for relevant information is a FOI request whether you label it as such or not and therefore your existing request should have been treated as FOI request and thus the refusal to provide the information should have included the relevant details (legal speak referring to the sections of the FOI Act that give them an exemption) as to why under the FOI Act your request has not been met. The advantage of doing this - is that technically your new response would be a Request for Review against a FOI decision meaning that if they refuse at the "Review" stage you can go direct to the Information Commissioner. If you make a new request - they get 20 working days then another 20 days if you have to ask for Review. Its frankly stupid for NRS to say "we have these in closed records but you can make a FOI request". They should just have told you "we have these in closed records so I have treated your enquiry as a FOI request" and the Information Commissioner will not be impressed at making you jump through a needless hoop.
Ironically the advantage for you is that someone at NRS probably has to go find the information for you and will send you a scanned copy; if they hadn't locked them you may have been told - the information is available please come into the archives and find it.