12 December 2025<\/span> by Peter Skelton KC<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n In this case<\/a>, the High Court considered the appropriate legal test for leaving findings of fact to juries in Article 2 inquests. Is it that such findings are arguable? Or is it that there is sufficient evidence to support them? The answer, quite firmly, is the latter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Background facts<\/strong><\/p>\n In the early hours of 20 March 2003, two gunmen fired shots into a car driven by Sabina Rizvi, killing her and gravely injuring her boyfriend, Mark Williams. Shortly before the shooting, the two victims had attended Bexleyheath police station in south-east London, where Mr Williams had been arrested and bailed for the alleged theft of a car belonging to a local criminal, Paul Asbury. The attack had been orchestrated by Mr Asbury. In November 2004, he was convicted at trial of murdering Ms Rizvi and attempting to murder Mr Williams and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years. The two gunmen were never identified.<\/p>\n The inquest<\/strong><\/p>\n An inquest into Ms Rizvi\u2019s death was opened on 25 March 2003 and adjourned pending Mr Asbury\u2019s trial. After the trial, Ms Rizvi\u2019s family, including her mother The inquest finally took place at the Old Bailey between 4 and 26 March 2024, before HHJ Angela Rafferty KC, sitting as an assistant coroner, (\u201cthe Coroner\u201d) and a jury. The witnesses included Mr Asbury, who accepted his guilt but refused to name the two gunmen, and the two police officers with whom Ms Rizvi and Mr Williams had interacted before they left the Bexleyheath police station.<\/p>\n Once the witness testimony had concluded on 21 March 2024, the Coroner invited the interested persons \u2013 the family, the Metropolitan Police Service, and the two police officers \u2013 to make submissions on the sufficiency of the evidence in respect of three key issues of fact:<\/p>\n The Coroner delivered her written ruling on 25 March 2024. She determined that issues (1) and (2) could not properly be left to the jury and in respect of issue (3), she stated:<\/p>\n \u2018The evidence I have heard at this inquest is insufficient such that a properly directed jury could find that the police were or ought to have been aware of any immediate risk to Sabina Rizvi\u2019s life from Paul Asbury, and there is insufficient evidence to support the suggestion that that the police were or ought to have been aware of such a risk from any quarter.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018There is insufficient evidence that there were steps the police could reasonably have been expected to take to prevent any risk to Sabina from materialising, and therefore there is no evidence that the police failed to take such steps.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I do not in these circumstances consider it necessary or appropriate to make findings as to causation.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Mrs Rizvi sought advice about the prospects of challenging the Coroner\u2019s ruling but received negative advice from her counsel. On 26 March 2025, she applied for an adjournment to give her the opportunity to obtain a second opinion. The Coroner refused and later that day the jury returned a short-form conclusion of unlawful killing.<\/p>\n Application for judicial review<\/strong><\/p>\n On 24 September 2024, six months after the inquest had concluded, Mrs Rizvi formally filed her application for permission to challenge the lawfulness of Coroner\u2019s ruling on 25 March 2024 \u2013 on the grounds that she erred in law by:<\/p>\n On 17 November 2025, the High Court (Foxton J) rejected Mrs Rizvi\u2019s request to extend time to bring her claim [footnote 1] and dismissed her application on the basis that both grounds were unarguable.<\/p>\n Key principles in the ruling<\/strong><\/p>\n In respect of Ground (1)<\/strong>, the court affirmed the principle that juries should only be allowed to consider potential findings of fact that pass the Galbraith<\/em> (or Galbraith<\/em>-plus) test [footnote 2] i.e. there is sufficient evidence to support them [80.1]. This principle applies equally to facts that arise in respect of Article 2 issues. For the purposes of an inquest\u2019s conclusions, the arguability test \u2013 which determines whether an inquest should be Article 2 compliant \u2013 is therefore irrelevant [80.iii].<\/p>\n The court also noted that the threshold for a finding of \u2018real and immediate\u2019 risk has frequently been recognised by the courts as \u2018high\u2019 or \u2018very high\u2019 [81.i]. See a long line of authorities, including Rabone v Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust <\/a><\/em>[2012] UKSC 2, [2012] 2 AC 72<\/a>, at [36], and\u00a0Van Colle v Chief Constable of Hertfordshire <\/a><\/em>[2008] UKHL 50, [2009] 1 AC 225<\/a>, at [30], [69], [115].<\/em><\/p>\n In respect of Ground (2)<\/strong>, at [92] the court affirmed the principle that the test for causation is \u201cwhether, on the balance of probabilities, the conduct in question more than minimally, negligibly or trivially contributed to the death<\/em>\u201d, per R (Tainton) v HM Senior Coroner for Preston and West Lancashire <\/a><\/em>[2016] EWHC 1396 (Admin), [2016] 4 WLR 157<\/a>, at [41]; and that a coroner has a discretion, not an obligation, to leave to a jury causes of death that are merely possible and not probable, per Tainton<\/em> at [42].<\/p>\n The court held that, having found that there were no acts or omissions by the police that satisfied the sufficiency test, the Coroner was right to conclude that there were no causation issues that should have been left to the jury [99]. The judge made the simple but important point that \u201cCausation is not an issue which, in this context, could fairly or sensibly be approached in the abstract, but only by reference to acts or omissions alleged to be causative<\/em>\u201d [99].<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n This judgment provides sensible clarification of the way in which different legal tests apply to Article 2 issues at different stages of coronial investigations and inquests: arguability during the process and sufficiency at the end. Practitioners must, though, bear in mind the longstanding prohibition on citing permission judgments in their cases [footnote 3]. Foxton J\u2019s reasoning may help with your submissions, but it will not get you home.<\/p>\n Peter Skelton KC<\/a> is a barrister at 1 Crown Office Row.<\/em><\/p>\n [1] CPR 54.5(1) provides that the claim form in a judicial review \u2018must be filed (a) promptly; and (b) in any event not later than three months after the ground to make the claim first arose.\u2019<\/p>\n [2] See Chief Coroner\u2019s Law Sheet No 2 \u2018Galbraith<\/em> Plus\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n [3] See the 2001 Practice Direction: Citation of Authorities<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ukhumanrightsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed.jpg?resize=1024%2C696&ssl=1\")
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