Let coroners link suicides to gambling, say families

BORIS JOHNSON is being urged to help expose the ‘true’ scale of links between gambling addiction and suicide.

Bereaved families joined with MPs yesterday to call on the Prime Minister for a change in the law to require coroners to say if problem gambling was a factor in inquest deaths.

Campaigners claim it would highlight the terrible toll of addiction and give them ‘hard facts’ to take on the powerful gambling industry.

About 500 suicides a year in the UK are said to be linked to gambling problems. Coroners in England and Wales are not required to say if the victim had a history of addiction to gambling. Liz Ritchie, who founded the Gambling with Lives campaign group with husband Charles after their son Jack took his life in 2107, said yesterday: ‘Every time we push for change, the gambling companies say, oh, we need more research. But requiring coroners to record if there was a link with gambling addiction would give us hard facts.’

The couple say they have now been approached by more than 50 other families affected by gambling-linked suicides in the past five years.

Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Alan Smith, introduced a Bill in the Lords last week for coroner reform. Tory MP Tracey Crouch, who quit as Sports Minister in 2018 over delays to slashing maximum stakes on fixed-odds betting terminals, said last night: ‘It is a no-brainer that coroners should register if gambling was a factor in suicide.’