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  • Writer's pictureelizabethdalewrite

Interview with County Coroner

Updated: Mar 20, 2018




Interview Emma Carlyon

The cathedral bells are chiming 2pm as I cross the cobbles of Boscawen Street and enter Truro’s City Hall. The walls of the elegantly curving staircase are lined with black and white photographs of former Mayors of the city, austere bearded and moustachioed faces gaze down at me as I climb to the large 1st floor landing. Crossing the plush carpet I can hear a friendly gaggle of people sharing a joke and I see that Dr Emma Carlyon, the lady I have come to meet, is in the centre of the fun.

As I introduce myself she laughingly tells me that her colleagues have been teasing her, that the interview was all a wind up, that no one was really coming to talk her after all.

You see Emma Carlyon is no stranger to media attention. She has been giving interviews regularly for the past 17 years but nearly all of them have been to discuss her latest inquest in her role as Cornwall’s senior county coroner, very rarely is she the focus of attention.

Emma is dressed in a smart navy dress with a string of pearls and she slips on her jacket and a red scarf as she leads me into her court room. It is a wonderfully light room with high ceilings and large sash windows overlooking the street, we sit down at a long mahogany table smoothed to a high glassy shine through years of use.

“We’re usually sitting about four days a week here . . . Inquests can last 30 minutes to days and weeks but it depends as each inquest is different.”

Behind her on a raised dais is the chair where Emma usually sits during those proceedings. It is made of heavy oak and has the Cornish coat of arms carved into its back. When I ask her to tell me more about her work she speaks in a slow and measured way, each answer carefully considered.

“Every week I see traumatic stuff. I think any unexpected death is difficult for anyone because you never want to face the reality that one day you will die. The saddest thing for me in my jurisdiction is that people will die when they’re having their special family time on holiday, I find that quite difficult. It’s unexpected or it’s not the right time and it’s not always the ones you see on the news that are difficult.”

Emma goes on to explain some of the details of her job, how an inquest comes about and what her role is. It is a job few of us would want but one she is clearly proud to do. “My job is to look at the facts and to carry out my judicial job and lead to a conclusion. What I am doing is guiding people to a conclusion. Who’s died, where and how the death came about and also if there’s anything we can learn from it, to make sure that is disseminated to the right people who could make changes.”

Until just a few months ago she was on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I am curious how does a woman who deals with such tragedy every day, who hears around 450 inquests each year, about 8 – 9 per week, remains so warm and cheerful? What does she do to relax?

“I have a small holding. I’ve got three goats, seven chickens and two chicks,” she laughs with pride, “oh and I’ve also got an apple press.” But there is one activity which is clearly her first love. Surfing. Her grandmother introduced her to the sport as a child she tells me and now it is something she does whenever she can. “I like to surf at Chapel Porth, Polzeath and Porthtowan. The old wooden boards, I love it . . . the first thing I do [if I have been away] is take my board out and surf. It’s just lovely.”

Her connections to Cornwall and in particular Truro run very deep. Emma was born in the city in 1963 as were both of her parents and both her father and mother have been mayor of the city.

“I love the people, I love the countryside, I love the sea. I love everything about being Cornish, I am totally proud of being Cornish.”

The Carlyon family has been an integral part of the fabric of Cornish society for generations as magistrates, solicitors and coroners. During our conversation I notice a large white marble bust at the far end of the room, Dr Clement Carlyon. Emma laughs and nods yes he is a member of the family, a great, great uncle born in 1777 who was mayor of Truro five times and was responsible for installing the city’s leats in his fight against cholera.

There is one thing that comes across as I talk with Emma Carlyon, she is a very smart woman. It is not just her degree in biology and chemistry or her PhD from Cambridge in Bio-technology and medical diagnostics or indeed her law degree. There is something more in her manner, an intelligence that reassures, puts you at ease. You feel in safe hands.

After graduating she worked in London, she loved the buzz of the city and being surrounded by other researchers and lively academic minds. But Cornwall was always calling her back and she returned to join the family firm as a solicitor about 25 years ago, became a partner and even taught Environmental Law at Camborne School of Mines for a short while.

Her background may be academic but it is the people that drive her passion for what many would consider a very taxing job.

“I like people. I like to hope that I make a difference.” In an occupation which must at times seems overwhelmingly dark I ask Emma where she finds her optimism and her drive.

“I think it is good to have a mind-set that says yes we can prevent those deaths. Even if we save one person’s life it is worth doing, there’s some hope . . . one of the things that Cornwall is trying to do is prevent suicide and there is an initiative called Towards Zero Suicide. We have had a number of people who have taken their own life at Hell’s Mouth, so we wrote a letter asking the National Trust to work with the mental health services to see if we can prevent further deaths there. . . and road traffic accidents, again those are avoidable deaths in so many cases. Seeing if there’s a pattern, perhaps it’s the road layout or whatever I think then your job becomes worthwhile preventing, hopefully more deaths.”

Both her father and grandfather were coroners so Emma and her brother grew up surrounded by the work. She recalls often answering phone calls from the police in the family home and if her father was out she would write down the details of the incident on a pad for him. The sad realities of life must have been something that she understood much earlier than most. However when I ask Emma if she grew up wanting to follow in their footsteps she shakes her head “There was no possibility of being a coroner because women didn’t do that kind of thing.”

So, I ask her, how did it feel when she eventually got the job?

“I was excited because I was the first. I thought I’ve done it. I have broken that ceiling. And it is such an interesting job because it combines my interests in research, investigation, science and medical investigation with law. I believe in reconciliation. That the law should be used for peaceful means to reconcile people, whether they are at odds in the civil courts or whatever so that you can use the process to avoid anger and upset in families.”

Since taking office Emma Carlyon has been influential in the modernisation of the Coroner’s Service in Cornwall. In years gone by the county was broken into several different areas each overseen by its own coroner but now the service has been merged.

“Since I’ve taken over one of my remits was to amalgamate so we’ve formed a much more modern uniform service . . . we had to streamline, find more modern ways of working,” She also has hopes of further changes to the service in the future.

“I think it would be preferable if the coroner’s service was under the Ministry of Justice so that there is uniformity across the whole of the country. Just because I think you’d avoid that postcode lottery effect. I know it wouldn’t be so personalised but I think in this day and age people are expecting that. For it to be the same funding from central government so that you haven’t got different offices being resourced in different ways.”

Some things haven’t changed however in what is still a very male dominated profession. When Emma gave birth to her daughter Charlotte in 2002, the first baby to ever be born to a coroner, her father had to cover her so that she could take some time off. When I ask her if things have improved she laughs and replies that there are more women coroners now but still no maternity leave.

There is a palpable change in Dr Carlyon when she talks about her family. She visible brightens and leans forward in her chair making sure I catch every word.

“My family is a musical family, she says enthusiastically, “We all play. My husband [Simon Rutherfoord] is a member of the Truro Male Voice Choir. We go and watch him singing. And Charlotte my daughter is a music scholar at Truro High School, she plays the viola, sings and plays piano . . . I have just started learning the cello and I play the piano.”

It is clear that her families support and the time that they spend together is a great tonic for her and I remember reading that her faith is in important to her too, so I ask if it helps her in her work.

“Yes, I go to Truro Methodist church and I know that when I have a big inquest they will all be thinking about me. In fact I know that people all around Truro will be thinking of me. It’s a support network,” she becomes quite earnest “I think it helps, the network I’ve got to support me but it doesn’t influence the way I do my job. My job is to be independent”

And after speaking with Emma Carlyon that is something that I feel Cornwall can have faith in. A woman determined to give families who find themselves adrift in the worst possible circumstances the peace and resolutions that they so desperately need. All too quickly our hour is over.

She walks me back down the staircase, pointing out items of curiosity in glass cabinets and pictures on the wall of her mother and father in their mayoral robes as we go. Outside she smiles warmly, shakes my hand and waves goodbye as she crosses the street. Emma Carlyon has the weekend off and she is going surfing.

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