Open verdict

The open verdict is an option open to a coroner's jury at an inquest in the legal system of England and Wales. The verdict means the jury confirms the death is suspicious, but is unable to reach any other verdicts open to them. Mortality studies consider it likely that the majority of open verdicts are recorded in cases of suicide where the intent of the deceased could not be proved, although the verdict is recorded in many other circumstances.

Two Lords Chief Justice have cautioned an open verdict does not mean the jury has failed to do their duty of explaining the cause of death, but, in some cases there is real doubt about the cause of death. However, the uncertainty explicit in the verdict has led many to regard it as an unsatisfactory one. Current legal guidance is to avoid open verdicts if possible:

an open verdict is thus only to be used in the last resort if there is insufficient evidence to enable the coroner or the jury to reach any other conclusions. The fact of there possibly being uncertainty as to other parts of the inquisition, for example as to the precise cause, time or place of death, does not authorise recording an open verdict if there is sufficient evidence to record how the deceased came by his death. In other words, the coroner or jury should not fail to reach a positive conclusion merely because there is some doubt on some minor point.

In an obiter dictum (legal opinion not forming part of the judgment) in the case of R v West London Coroner, ex parte Gray in 1986, the divisional court stated that the open verdict was, as with the verdicts of unlawful killing and suicide, required to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the fact of a verdict of suicide requires "some evidence of the deceased having intended to take his own life" means open verdicts are often recorded in cases where suicide is suspected, but the evidence of intent is lacking. For this reason some studies of suicides have also included those deaths in which open verdicts were recorded.

In May 1961 a fire broke out in the Top Storey Club in Bolton, UK. 19 people died in the fire (14 in the fire and 5 who jumped from windows on the eighth floor) but despite an investigation by the Police and Fire Brigade, no actual cause for the fire could be given and the Coroner recorded an open verdict on all who died in the fire.

...
Wikipedia