Garden Court North co-hosts INQUEST Northern Conference and Quiz
19 September 2025
(Left to right) Leigh Day’s Leanne Devine, Garden Court North’s Pete Weatherby KC, Kate Stone, Anna Morris KC and Ison Harrison’s Gemma Vine at the INQUEST Northern Conference on 18 September, 2025. Credit: Alex Blair / Garden Court North Chambers.
Yesterday (18 September 2025) saw Leigh Day, Ison Harrison Solicitors and Garden Court North come together to host the ever-popular Northern Conference and Quiz at Manchester Hall.
The day was aimed at fundraising for the life-changing work carried out by INQUEST, the charity which provides expertise on state related deaths and their investigation to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians.
After introductions from Garden Court North’s event Chair Anna Morris KC, INQUEST’s Jodie Anderson and Selen Cavcav, Garden Court North’s Kate Stone, delivered a practical case law update looking at recent inquests.
Garden Court North’s Pete Weatherby KC then delivered an update on the long-awaited introduction of Hillsborough Law to Parliament. Pete, who penned an op-ed dissecting the key components of Hillsborough Law following the news of its introduction on Tuesday (16 September), was one of the authors of the original bill.
“If Hillsborough Law stays in the form it is now, it will be landmark legislation,” Pete said at the Northern Conference. “But there is still a journey to go, in Parliament, the House of Lords, and in rollout.”
Anna Morris KC, Leanne Devine (Leigh Day) and Gemma Vine (Ison Harrison) then provided a dynamic breakdown of the practicalities of inquests and the new Coroners’ Bench Book, drawing on Anna’s experience as a Coroner in North Manchester.
Rachel Francis from Claiming Space delivered a thought-provoking session on vicarious trauma later in the afternoon, looking at the ways legal practitioners who work in highly emotional, stress-inducing situations can manage the psychological toll of their workload.
To close out the Northern Conference, delegates were given an exclusive screening of INQUEST’s powerful new documentary: ‘The UK is Not Innocent’. It chronicles INQUEST’s journey from grassroots collective in 1981 to investigating the deaths of Hillsborough, Grenfell, and so many other tragedies, as well as deaths arising from police brutality or mismanaged state institutions.
The documentary was interspersed with moving interviews from the bereaved families, INQUEST’s Deborah Coles, Garden Court Chambers’ Leslie Thomas KC, and passages from the late Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem ‘The One Minutes of Silence’, read by the poet, actor and activist himself, a former patron of INQUEST.
Garden Court North would like to thank everyone who attended both the Northern Conference and the ever-competitive Northern Quiz, written by Leigh Day’s Stephanie Hill and Gemma Vine, quizmastered by Alex Blair.
Read more about Garden Court North’s inquests and public inquiries team here.
Additional media
INQUEST – Benjamin Zephaniah’ ‘The One Minutes of Silence’
For further information, please contact Alex Blair, Communications Manager at Garden Court North Chambers: ablair@gcnchambers.co.uk
