Durham and Darlington Coroner

Coronavirus update- Guidance on hearings from 4.1.2021

All hearings will continue to take place at our courts in Durham city and Crook Civic Centre. However, for public safety and for that of our staff, we can officer the facility for some witnesses and any interested person to participate via a video link and without the need to attend in person. This provides not only sight of the court, witnesses and coroner, but also full participation by evidence giving and questioning.

If you are due to attend the Coroners Court as a juror and you have current access to email, please email hmcoroner@durham.gov.uk and you will be updated as to the position of jury court proceedings.

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Accessibility Statement

We want everyone who visits our website to be able to access the full range of services available, regardless of their skill or technology.

The current version of this website was launched in 2016, but some individual elements of it may not have been updated since then.

How accessible the site is

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible.

What to do if you have problems or queries

If you have any accessibility problems or feedback, please email us at hmcoroner@durham.gov.uk

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Durham and Darlington Coroner is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Under the Equality Act 2010 we must ensure we do not unlawfully discriminate in our service delivery and make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities where necessary. We are constantly working to improve the accessibility and usability of our site.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • background colours: some text / background colours do not have enough contrast, failing success criterion 1.4.3
  • frames and iframes: some do not have a title attribute, failing success criterion 2.4.1
  • IDs: some pages has duplicate IDs which cause problems in screen readers, failing success criterion 4.1.1
  • outline/border style: the stylesheet makes it difficult to see the dotted link focus outline, failing success criterion 2.4.7
  • markup: the stylesheet font-weight property is used rather than semantic markup like strong, failing success criterion 1.3.1

Accessibility Roadmap

As stated in the non-compliance section, the known issues are listed below:

  • HTML – the underlying code used to create this website.
  • CSS – used to describe how HTML elements are displayed on this website.

A program of work is now underway to address these issues and involves working with Durham County Council’s in-house developers/designers as well as third party functionality providers.

We aim to resolve the above items by September 2021.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

  • PDFs/documents (pre September 2018): PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 or documents that are not essential to providing our services.
  • Pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020.
  • Live audio and video.
  • maps: unless they provide core information.

How we test the site

We re-assess a website or system for accessibility whenever it undergoes a major modification.
Most page content is checked every time it is updated.