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Coroners / Post Mortem Report

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lulu_bucket | 20:52 Mon 07th Jun 2021 | Law
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hi. can anyone help. rather a touchy subject but does anyone know if one can obtain a coroners report/PM report from 49 years ago when the person (my father) died abroad. lot of unanswered questions. if anyone can help great but I may have to private message you with more details. Thanks,
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Do you know which country he died in
21:41 Mon 07th Jun 2021
Do you know which coroner's office was involved? If so, the first step (somewhat self-evidently) would be to contact them to ask if it's possible for you to receive a copy of the report:
https://www.bereavementadvice.org/topics/death-certificate-and-coroners-inquest/obtaining-post-mortem-results/
(I'm assuming that the death overseas was dealt with by a UK coroner's court. If the matter was handled entirely overseas, things could obviously become far more complicated).

Contact details for all coroners' office in England and Wales are available here:
https://www.judiciary.uk/related-offices-and-bodies/office-chief-coroner/the-appointment-of-senior-coroners/

[NB: When making contact, remember to state your relationship to the deceased. Reports of coroners' inquests are closed to the general public for a period of 75 years but family members may request access].
Question Author
thank you Buenchico - maybe i can start - i am sure everything was done abroad, he came back without his heart - so I am told. just need answers if it was accidental, heart attack, suicide.....
Have you his death certificate? This should state the cause of death.
Good thinking, Jackdaw.

UK death certificates aren't always issued when someone dies overseas but, if the death was registered with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (as it was called 49 years ago and up until recently), there might be a death certificate available, indicating the cause of death:
https://www.gov.uk/order-copy-birth-death-marriage-certificate
Question Author
thank you both. i dont have the death cert. my mother is 97 and i dont want to ask her and she wont remember . i need to delve more. i need a copy.
Do you know which country he died in
Question Author
he supposedly died in Corfu 8 or 9 October 1972
National Archives
Births deaths and marriages at sea or abroard
You say that he came back without his heart. Therefore his funeral must have been in the UK so there must be some documentation somewhere.
Go here:
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

Put a tick in the 'Deaths' box.

Enter your father's surname and first name.

Use the 'Date range' field to input the date of your father's death as accurately as you know it. Note that 'Mar' doesn't actually mean March. It means the first quarter of the year. (i.e. January to March). Similarly 'Jun' means April to June, 'Sep' means July to September and 'Dec' means October to December.

Leave everything else in the left-hand panel blank.

If you know the district where your father's death was probably registered in the England or Wales, select it under 'Districts' OR if you only know the county, select the appropriate county. (You only need to complete ONE of those fields). If it could have been anywhere in England or Wales, select either 'All districts' or 'All counties'.

Click 'Find' (at the bottom left of the page).

If there's a death certificate recorded, you should see a page like this one:
https://ibb.co/xCKn64V
Note that there's only one entry on that page. If your search criteria were imprecise, you might see lots of entries. If nothing is found, you simply get a page like that one with no entries on it.

The page in my illustration shows that Michael Dennis Peaty died between January and March 1973 (because, as above, 'Mar' doesn't actually stand for March). He was born on the 30th October 1952, with the relevant entry in the summary register being in volume 4B of the one for 'Mar' 1973 for Ipswich, on page number 3114.

If you can find similar information listed for your father's death, it shows that a death certificate definitely exists and provides you with the 'GRO reference' to order a copy of it from my link above.
50 y ago is a very long time
and it is likely there are no records at all ( existing)

it is before the 1988 Coroners' Act and it was quite possible that your father was handed over to the relatives without further ado and no inquest or further post mortem
( one must have been done to know that the heart was missing)

Coroners quite simply showed no interest in inquests for deaths abroad, when all the witnesses are there anyway and cannot be called

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