Under the Home Office Circular 250/1967, a schedule of destruction of coroners records is laid down.Once 15 years old the records can be weeded,' that is destroyed or sampled by the individual coroner concerned. There are exceptions to the 15 year destruction, and apparently it is not compulsory so some coroners choose not to destroy them. Therefore individual Coroners decide what happens to the papers, but very many of them were destroyed by the coroner anyway, hence there are regional variations in survival. Also Coroners' records are closed for 75 years. Any request to see closed records should be directed to the appropriate local coroner's office.
Stan
