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Christopher Traynor

Yes, but of course the difficulty with an open verdict is that one is not saying that there is therefore hard evidence of something other than a natural cause. I realise that this is a fine distinction, but this is the distinction that Merseyside police needs to address, because it must decide to make a request, as we believe they should, to the French police to interview Monsieur Nesmon. The other alternative is available not to the Foreign Office but to the family. The deputy public prosecutor in Bobigny said that if the family were to write to her directly, she would consider any representation that they made. I will make sure that staff in my Department write to the family to ensure that they know precisely how they could go about that. The door is at least slightly open in the case of the public prosecutor in Bobigny. I fully understand, of course, why Christopher's family have been critical of the French authorities and, indeed, of our own consular service, the UK coroner, the international funeral directors and the UK police. I would say that there was a series of very unfortunate elements right from the beginning, including the fact that we found it very difficult to identify the right person as next of kin at the very beginning. We were put in touch with another Traynor, in Australia, who of course had absolutely nothing to do with Christopher, but we had no means of getting directly in touch with next of kin. Quite often, that is one of the most difficult things that consular staff have to deal with, but from the very beginning there has been a series of unfortunate moments that have made it very difficult for the family to have clear confidence in the processes in either the French system or the UK system. When, on top of that, the French system and the UK system have been at odds one with another, of course that has led to more confusion. As I said, I am more than happy to meet the family and, if there is any further assistance that we can possibly give, I am happy to make that available. Our difficulty is that we are not able to command the French Government to command the French prosecuting authorities on how to proceed. The French prosecuting authorities have said that in the first instance they would need either a direct approach from the family or a direct approach from Merseyside police to be able to reopen the investigation and interview particular individuals.