THE widower of a woman who died early last year was given leave by the High Court yesterday to seek to quash the verdict entered by a coroner at an inquest into her death.
Mr Justice Geoghegan gave permission to Mr Leo Leydon, a farmer, of Ballinfrill, Co Sligo, to seek judicial review of the Sligo inquest verdict on his wife, Caroline (29), on February 19th.
Mr James Connolly SC, for Mr Leydon, said Ms Leydon, who worked at a local factory, was in an advanced stage of pregnancy when she died. A solicitor for her husband at the inquest had sought to explore alternative views as to how she died.
Mr Leydon is seeking a judicial review on alleged grounds that the coroner, Mr Desmond Moran, failed to allow his (Mr Leydon's) legal representative to fairly test the evidence; and failed to allow the legal representative cross examine witnesses.
It is also claimed that the coroner intimated he had reached a conclusion before all evidence was heard and refused to allow the legal representative to address the jury on matters of law.
Mr Leydon, in an affidavit, said his wife died on January 30th, 1996. On the day she died she worked at the factory where she was employed as a general operative.
Apparently she collapsed on the floor of the reception area and was taken to Sligo General Hospital. She was pronounced dead at 12.05 p.m. at the hospital.
At the inquest the coroner sat with a jury. A verdict was returned that Ms Leydon died from a massive haemorrhage. Before the inquest, added Mr Leydon, he obtained a medical report from a professor emeritus in obstetrics and gynaecology at a leading hospital in London who had studied the notes prepared by Sligo General Hospital.
The professor referred to the medical evidence and said that in the circumstances, his view was that it was extremely difficult to see why a healthy young woman should die from a haemorrhage. The expert's view was that the exact mechanism by which death occurred remained unexplained.
However, the expert hypothesised that if Ms Leydon suffered from anaemia prior to her death, when she fell at her place of work she might have sustained concussion which led to a disorder of brain function.
Brain swelling in a concussed woman could cause the brain stem to be forced downwards, impairing the function of the vital centres and leading to death.
In his affidavit, Mr Leydon added that because of this expert opinion, his solicitor had sought during the inquest to cross examine witnesses about how his wife collapsed at work, her condition on admission to hospital, the tests carried out before her death, and the finding of the autopsy report giving the cause of death.