The McGrail Inquiry report will now be published ‘as early as possible next week’ following a further delay to allow for the conclusion of a Coroner’s inquest into the death at sea of two men.

A statement continued: 

“As is known, the Report's publication, which had been scheduled for 5 December, has been delayed while the Chief Minister, whose alleged actions have been central to the Inquiry, remains inactive following an operation to repair a detached retina in his eye. The Chief Minister expects to be well enough by late this week. 

“In the meantime, however, HM Deputy Coroner, who is currently presiding over an Inquest (with a jury) into the death of two men at sea in a collision with an RGP launch has written to the Deputy Chief Minister in relation to the Government's publication of parts of the Report. That collision is one of the issues that the Inquiry has been concerned with. 

“In his letter, HM Deputy Coroner points out that it may be that certain matters addressed in the Report directly overlap with evidence and issues presently before the jury in the above- mentioned inquest. In particular, he is concerned about any sections of the Report that describe, analyse, or draw conclusions about the March 2020 marine incident and the circumstances of the resulting deaths of Mr. Ahmed and Mr. Mohamed. 

“HM Deputy Coroner is concerned that the public release of the Inquiry’s findings or opinions on these same events could result in the jury being improperly influenced by any such external assessment. 

“In expressing these concerns to the Government, the Deputy Coroner (who had not initially thought that it would be necessary to do so) has requested that the Government consider temporarily redacting or withholding those parts of the Report from any public publication until the conclusion of the ongoing inquest. 

“The Deputy Coroner's request follows submissions made to him by counsel to all interested persons in the inquest, all of whom expressed concern on this point and have urged him to take steps to avoid the risk of the inquest jury being influenced by extraneous material. The jury is due to return its verdict in the Inquest sometime toward the end of this week. As is publicly known the current inquest is the second one into these deaths. The Government will of course agree to the Deputy Coroner's request. 

“Combining these two issues, namely that the Chief Minister will not be well enough until Friday and the Deputy Coroner's request (acceding to which would require considerable time and work to redact the relevant parts of the Report) the Government has considered that it is better to publish the Report in full as early as possible next week. 

“The Government regrets that publication will now not take place "in good time before Christmas" as it had previously stated. Indeed, it will take place only a few days before Christmas, which the Government would not initially have contemplated. The Government does not consider it appropriate to delay publication further until January, unless that were to become absolutely necessary.”