Work of Lancaster coroner goes under spotlight in second series of Channel 5 show

Dr Adeley, Lancashire’s senior coroner, previously featured in the Cause of Death documentary series last year.

It lifts the lid on the largely hidden world of how unexplained or suspicious deaths are investigated.

Dr Adeley and his team will again take centre stage in Cause of Death, a four-part series beginning on Channel 5 at 9pm on Wednesday November 1, in which viewers will see the painstaking process undertaken to piece together events leading up to a sudden and potentially unnatural loss of life.

Filmed over the course of six months, the programmes are based on unprecedented access to pathologists performing post-mortems and radiologists conducting and analysing scans – as well as staff at both the Royal Preston Hospital and officers at Lancashire Police.

Each stand-alone episode explores multiple stories, focusing on the families at the heart of these tales. The series provides an insightful narrative of the coroner and the specialised officers working with grieving relatives.

The new series begins with the sad death of an elderly woman who was physically attacked in a care home.

Lancashire County Council’s cabinet member for community and cultural services, Coun Peter Buckley – who is responsible for the coroners service in the area – said last year that the documentary was “groundbreaking”.

“I am very proud that Lancashire County Council, through our coroner’s office and working alongside our colleagues in the NHS and police, were able to provide access to an area of public service that has never been seen by the public before," he said.

“As well as being an informative and important piece of public service broadcasting, each film highlights individual human stories that are both moving and heart-breaking.

"I am extremely grateful to the families of those people featured for allowing the documentary makers to tell their loved ones’ stories."

Coroners operate within a legal framework and have a duty to investigate all deaths where the cause is unknown, as well as violent or unnatural deaths and deaths that occur in custody.

The coroner investigates in order to establish who, where and when a person died – and how.