Ison Harrison have a long-standing relationship with INQUEST with Ruth Bundey being on their board of Trustees and Gemma Vine a member of the INQUEST Lawyers Steering Committee. Gareth Naylor, alongside Ruth and Gemma regularly work alongside INQUEST in representing bereaved families at inquests involving the State.
INQUEST have launched a fundraising appeal to raise £40,000 to continue to assist bereaved families and we are proud to support the appeal.
Who are INQUEST
INQUEST is the only charity providing expertise on state-related deaths and their investigation to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians.
For 40 years, INQUEST has stood with bereaved people with a simple mission: putting an end to state-related deaths and the unjust social systems which enable them.
Their specialist casework includes deaths in police and prison custody, immigration detention, mental health settings and deaths involving multi-agency failings or where wider issues of state and corporate accountability are in question.
INQUEST’s policy, parliamentary, campaigning and media work is grounded in the day to day experience of working with bereaved people. Employing an integrated model, this brings together casework support, family participation, identification of thematic trends, statistics and analysis that feeds into the organisation’s work on campaigning, information sharing and policy and parliamentary work. At the heart of this unique model are the experiences and needs of bereaved people. This integrated approach is crucial to families, not only in making sure their voices are heard and holding the state to account for individual deaths, but also in changing policy and practice to prevent future deaths.
They also played a key role in work around the Hillsborough football disaster which Ruth Bundey was instructed in and the Grenfell Tower fire.
For further information or to contact them directly please visit their website https://www.inquest.org.uk/
How do INQUEST support bereaved families
INQUEST is the only charity providing expertise on state-related deaths. They provide support and advice to bereaved families through their specialist casework team and link families with specialist lawyers, like Ison Harrison Limited, across the country so they can be effectively represented at the inquest into their loved ones death.
They have a variety of information booklets available on their website as well as creating a Family Hub which allows families and friends bereaved by a state-related death to link through reference groups, listening days and family forums.
INQUEST’s Fundraising Appeal
INQUEST’s services are increasingly overstretched; a growing demand for their services culminated in the recent temporary closure of their valuable and important casework service.
They are also experiencing significant fundraising challenges in an increasingly competitive funding environment for charities and the devastating effects of austerity and the erosion of human rights mean the work of small charities like INQUEST providing specialist support are more important than ever.
That is why INQUEST have decided to launch a fundraising appeal to raise £40,000 to ensure they can meet the growing demand for their work and can continue assisting families bereaved by state-related deaths in the futures.
Further information about their fundraising appeal can be found here https://www.inquest.org.uk/Appeal/inquest-appeal
