How long does an investigation or inquest take?

• This depends on a number of factors including:
  • how complex the situation is;
  • how many issues need to be looked at;
  • how many witnesses need to give evidence;
  • how many interested parties there are; and
  • how busy the coroner’s inquest list is.
• Television shows and movies do not accurately represent the process. Post-mortems and all the associated tests can take substantial amounts of time to be processed. Once all the tests have been run then a report needs to be written. This also takes time.
• The investigation and the inquest cannot start until all relevant reports are available and witness statements have been taken.
• The inquest hearing itself may take a couple of hours, days or weeks.
• The whole process is likely to take months and sometimes even more than a year.