Human Rights Challenge Over Lord Advocate’s Failure to Hold Inquiry

Scotland's top law officer, Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini is being taken to court in a bid to force a Fatal Accident Inquiry into a lorry driver's death.

Graham Meldrum died from head injuries while unloading his truck, at Allied Bakeries' yard at Balmore Industrial Estate in Glasgow two-and-a-half years ago, but his partner Karen Thomson, and her family including Graham's 85 years old parents, still don't know what happened to him.

Now Solicitor Advocate Frank Maguire of Thompsons Solicitors, who represents Karen has lodged a petition at the Court of Session.

It claims that the Lord Advocate is in breach of both the European Convention of Human Rights, and the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Inquiry (Scotland) Act, and calls for a Judicial Review of her failure to hold an inquiry.

Karen, 46, a mother of four from Croftfoot in Glasgow said: "I just want to grieve for Graham in a darkened room with the blinds pulled down. But I am having to fight for every scrap of information.

"I don't even know if he died instantly, so I wake up with nightmares that he may have been suffering before he was found.

"I am also tormented by the thought that lessons could be learned from Graham's death which would prevent the same thing happening to someone else. But others could be in my position, because there has never been an inquiry and we don't know the truth.

"I am losing faith that I will ever get the complete truth, because witnesses' memories will be blurred after all this time."

Mr Maguire said: "It is totally unacceptable that Karen has had to wait for all this time to find out the truth about how her partner died.

"We hope that a Judicial Review of the Lord Advocate's failure to hold an inquiry will force a result within the next couple of months."

"Apart from the strain all this has put on Karen, it is a terrible burden on his parents who realise they cannot wait for years to find out how their son died."

Mr Maguire added that he has a number of other individual clients who are in a similar position to Karen Thomson, and that the Judicial Review, if granted could also strengthen the campaign by relatives of the Stockline victims for a public inquiry into their deaths.

Two companies have been charged with a number of alleged breaches of health and safety legislation, but hearings in the case have been postponed time after time, adding to Karen's aguish.

Evening Times Article

Graham Meldrum




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