>>11273338, >>11285792, >>11286058
According to the Coroner's report, the Coroner began a post-mortem investigation on 7-MAR-2014. It concluded at the end of the inquest on 29-JUN-2015. The cause of death was multiple trauma - blunt force injuries caused by the victim's collision with the rigid metal bollard after having fallen when the motorcycle came into contact with the raised kerb edge at the traffic island.
So the medical examination would have taken place prior to 7-MAR-2014. Further delays before release of the body might have occurred for various reasons. A year to complete the inquest seems, to me, a long time given the reported nature of the accident and of the cause of death.
According to the National Health Service, NHS, a post-mortem examination is lawfully mandated if, for example, the death is the result of an accident or injury. The main purpose is to determine cause of death and whether an inquest - a legal investigation into the circumstances - is needed.
QUOTE
If the death occurred in suspicious circumstances, samples may also need to be kept by the police as evidence for a longer period.
In some cases, samples may need to be kept for a number of months, or even years.
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Clarke's fatal accident was only one of six fatal road accidents that had occured that year in Westminster and of 127 in Greater London. Seems that might have been reason enough for the inquest. The Coroner's report was made under the section of a then-new law dealing with prevention of future deaths. So the newness of the law, dated 2013, may have also contributed to the undertaking of an inquest. Officially, there also may have been reports of concerns that prompted the inquest. Those concerns are described in the Coroner's report on Clarke's death.
The simplicity of the concerns, and of the findings, and of the recommendations do not seem to merit a year-long inquest, imo. The City installed the new rebound bollards by AUG 2014, about five months after Clarke's death. This also seems to have been an overly long duration before the obvious solution was implemented. The installation or upgrade of the bollards satisfied the immediate concern raised in the Coroner's report. Other concerns were about the effectiveness of road inspections and the comprehensiveness of the city's database on road signs and such. Hardly seems that the latter would have delayed the new bollards which were, at the time of the accident, already in the streets of Westminster at other locations.
So what may have caused the delay of installing the new bollards? Might that provide the context for the delay, if there was a delay, in setting up the framed bollards that appeared by, and prolly earlier than, MAY 2014? If that delay began with no changes to the traffic islands, then, that might leave room for the NOT AFTER bookend to be ushed farther out. But how far - end of MAR or well into APR 2014?
It is on this basis that, at least for now, we might allow for two months' worth of fudge room on that bookend. The best way to resolve this is to find pictorial evidence of changes to the bollards that were in place earlier than the SV images of MAY 2014. Can we determine the date by which changes had taken place with MAY? For example, when did SV capture the images that are used online?
I suspect that the earliest change was not one initiated by the City but rather by the family and friends who put together, and persisted in maintaining, a memorial on the hooped two-legged steel bollard on the easterly side of the traffic island close to the junction with Craven Street.
In a local news report in 2017, few years after the accident, the family raised money in Clarke's memory.
Sauces below.
REPORT - re JOHN PAUL CLARKE
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Clarke-2015-0256.pdf
Table 7: Casualties in Greater London 2014 by borough, page 8
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/casualties-in-greater-london-2014.pdf
£40,000 raised in memory of Dalston man John Paul Clarke, 20-MAY-2017
https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/40-000-raised-in-memory-of-dalston-man-john-paul-clarke-who-died-in-tragic-motorbike-accident-1-5026802
HACKNEY QUEST, charity reports of trustees
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02266475/filing-history?page=3