What you've touched on here is the extraordinary power of a coroner in the English system. In some ways he has more discretion in the way he directs his jury than does a judge in a criminal or civil court: and it's not at all unusual for a Coroner to direct his jury to bring in a particular verdict. These powers are very ancient, and successive changes and modernisations in other parts of the legal system have usually passed by the office of Coroner. However, a thorough review of the Coroner's Court system was, I believe, commissioned a year or so ago. I've not heard anything about the outcome - either it's been quietly buried or the review is still in progress. Doubtless a Freeper expert in this area will enlighten us.
LOL these sorts of threads tend to denigrate into a Brits Bashing exercise followed by anti Brit Freepers and Brit freepers such as myself and others engaging in a flame war in which we Brits always win, because the other side after mouthing a few rote learned comments run off defeated by pure facts.