Family’s ‘distress’ over attitude of coroner
A CORONER’S office which has previously been accused of failing to respect Jewish religious sensitivities has backed down in a dispute over the release of a body for burial after being contacted by the JC.
St Pancras Coroner’s Court was criticised for “shocking insensitivity” by the family of Barry Davis after telling them that it would take two weeks to conduct an autopsy.
Mr Davis, a Yiddish scholar from West Hampstead who was an adviser on Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, died last Thursday, aged 72, after suffering from an undiagnosed illness for a number of years.
The coroner’s office informed relatives, some of whom had flown in from Australia and America for the funeral, that it would not be able to carry out an autopsy until December 27 at the earliest, 13 days after Mr Davis’s death.
But on Wednesday, the coroner said an autopsy would be conducted in the next 24 hours. The move came after the JC contacted the coroner, following a request from desperate relatives.
They said they had been “deeply distressed” at the attitude of the senior coroner, Mary Hassell, claiming her office had “shut us out”. Daniel Ryntjes, Mr Davis’s nephew, said: “By any standard our treatment up to now had been shocking. It is interfering with religious burial practice. There is a need for us to mourn and to do it quickly, in accordance with Jewish law.
The coroner’s court declined to issue a statement, saying it did not comment on ongoing post-mortem investigations.