The family of a Windrush citizen who died after being told he was in the UK illegally and sacked from his job have walked out of an inquest over the coroner’s refusal to make the Home Office an interested party in the hearing.

Lawyers for Dexter Bristol’s family had obtained an expert medical report that found stress was a contributing factor in the death of the 58-year-old, who collapsed in the street and died of heart failure.

After the family’s barrister tried to make submissions to the court about the role that Home Office policy might have played in Bristol’s death, the coroner refused a request for an adjournment and proceeded with the hearing. The family are now considering mounting a legal challenge after Dr William Dolman, who holds the position of assistant coroner, recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.

Dexter Bristol

Bristol was eight when he moved from Grenada to the UK in 1968 to join his mother, who was working as an NHS nurse, and spent the rest of his life in the UK. He was sacked from his cleaning job last year because he had no passport, and was denied benefits because officials did not believe he was in the country legally.

Una Morris, a barrister for the family, told the hearing at St Pancras coroner’s court that the expert medical report clearly stated that the stress Bristol was under as a result of the need to prove his right of abode in the UK contributed to his death.

“This is a question for the Home Office, about whether the Home Office in its various guises may have caused or contributed to the death of Mr Bristol,” she said.

She said the family were concerned that the Home Office could try to quash any findings from an inquest to which it was not a party, or if it was not given the opportunity to take part , and the family would then have to go through another inquest.

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There were heated exchanges in court between the barrister and the coroner. After a break, Dolman returned and said he wanted to apologise for the way he had spoken to Morris.

After the family left, evidence was taken from a number of witnesses and the hearing was swiftly concluded before Bristol’s family could lodge a judicial review seeking an interim order to stay the inquest. In ruling that the Home Office should not be an interested party, Dolman said it was “absolutely clear that he was under some sort of distress or pressure” but that this did not come solely from his immigration status.

He ruled that Bristol died of natural causes, an acute cardiac arrhythmia.

“I accept from the evidence that the deceased was suffering from a great deal of stress at the time,” Dolman said. He passed on his sympathy to the family and said: “I am so sorry that they are not here to have heard the evidence. All that might have been asked I have tried to ask on their behalf.”

Speaking outside the court, Bristol’s mother, Sentina, said she was deeply disappointed.

“We just want to have justice. We feel very disappointed at what the coroner had to say and I think that he was very rude,” she said.

The family later released a statement saying they were “hurt and disappointed” at the manner in which the coroner had spoken to their barrister, adding they were shocked it had taken less than two hours for the inquest to be concluded.

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Dolman was criticised by Inquest, a charity that provides expertise on state-related deaths. Its director, Deborah Coles, said: “For a family to have to leave an inquest in dismay at the cursory inquiry into their loved one’s death is really concerning not least when bereaved families are supposed to be at the heart of the process.”



Bristol’s immigration lawyer, Jacqueline McKenzie, said after the hearing: “It’s really distressing that the family decided that they couldn’t participate in the proceedings. I think that’s really sad but I think they were quite right to do so.

“The start of the proceedings were very, very difficult. I think the coroner did not show courtesy to the family or to their legal team, so I understand how they feel.”

Of Bristol she said: “We saw at the outset a very robust person but distressed by the fact that he was having to prove his status in the country, even though he had been here since 1968.

“He was prepared to fight but as the months went on and he was required to find more evidence it became very difficult and we saw him just decline into a shadow of himself.”