​Legal Aid limitations highlighted by the Inquest of Molly Russell

The family of a teenager who took her own life after viewing material about suicide and self-harm on social media has been refused funding to pay for legal advice at her inquest.

The Legal Aid Agency wrote to Molly’s family rejecting a request to pay part of the costs of their lawyer as the case did not satisfy the legal aid requirement of a “wider public interest.”

Kate Smith, Solicitor in the Medical Negligence team at Ashtons Legal comments:

“Following the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) in 2013, legal aid funding has been significantly reduced in terms of clinical negligence claims. Legal aid is now only available to children who have suffered severe disability due to a neurological injury sustained during the mother’s pregnancy, the child’s birth or the first eight weeks of the child’s life. Prior to LASPO, legal aid was available to anyone who suffered injury on a means tested basis. The difference of availability is drastic.

As well as a significant reduction to the availability of legal aid in clinical negligence claims, public funding for inquests is also severely limited and legal representation at most inquests is excluded. In order to satisfy the requirements for legal aid representation, an exceptional case must show either that there is a significant wider public interest in the applicant being legally represented or funded representation for the family is likely to be necessary to enable the Coroner to carry out an effective investigation into the death as required by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Sadly in Molly’s case the Legal Aid Agency have concluded that her family do not meet the standard for a wider public interest in having legal representation at her Inquest. It is very difficult to understand how this decision has been reached. We live in an era where social media is very influential in young people’s lives and the accessibility to material such as that viewed by Molly is easy with some of it verging on sensationalising suicide. Suicides, particularly amongst those who are young and vulnerable within our society is one of the UK’s biggest killers and so it seems at odds with the current social dynamic of our society that there is not a “large cohort of specific persons” who would benefit from representation at Molly’s inquest to address these issues.

It is clear and understandable that there must be a balance between the individual family needs and the public purse however, in the case of Molly Russell, it would seem that the protection of young people throughout the UK is potentially in jeopardy.

At Ashtons we try to compensate for the lack of availability to legal aid funding by offering client’s representation by way of a Conditional Fee Agreement, otherwise known as a “no win no fee agreement” for clinical negligence claims. We do offer these agreements for representation at Inquests also however, we can only do this if there are prospects of a clinical negligence claim following the Inquest in order that we can recover the costs.”