Daniel Gauntlett hypothermia death verdict

Note: A full report on this inquest is now in this post: Question’s unanswered in the Daniel Gauntlett inquest

A coroner has recorded a verdict of death by natural causes exacerbated by self neglect in the case of Daniel Gauntlett, a 35-year-old unemployed man who died on the step of an empty boarded up bungalow in Aylesford, Kent, in February 2013.

Campaigners have claimed that he was in effect a victim of  Section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012, which criminalised squatting in residential property. It had been suggested he “died as a result of obeying the law” because police told him not to squat the empty house.

It has been argued that Gauntlett’s human rights may have been breached either because the Government failed to put in place Article 2 European Convention (right to life) protections when it passed Section 144; or because the police or social services had failed to offer sufficient help to him.

However, the inquest made barely any mention of the squatting issue. Nor was there any call for an examination of Gauntlett’s Article 2 rights under a “Middleton inquest” procedure. The court was told that Gauntlett died from hypothermia on a bitterly cold winter night. Evidence was given of his chronic alcoholism which his father said began when his younger brother died in a road traffic accident at the age of 18.

The deputy coroner for Mid Kent, Kate Thomas, sitting on 10 December 2014, had documentary evidence of Gauntlett’s accident and emergency admissions before her. A local community warden said Gauntlett had refused help on a number of occasions. No evidence was offered regarding squatting or any police intervention to stop him squatting the house he died in front of.

Read a fuller report of the inquest here: Question’s unanswered in the Daniel Gauntlett inquest

Twitter: alrich0660

An earlier piece on the death of Daniel Gauntlett is here
More on the squatting law on Thinking Legally: How protection of property could crumble
And a piece also Daniel Gauntlett inquest: human rights issues and the ‘Middleton’ procedure
Also a piece on Ministry of Justice guidelines on Nearly Legal here.