MI5 call for secrecy at 7/7 inquest dismissed

Coroner Lady Justice Hallett earlier rejected calls from MI5 and Home Secretary Theresa May for the families of those killed in the 2005 London bombings to be excluded from hearings while she examines highly sensitive intelligence material.

Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Stanley Burnton today gave their reasons for rejecting a High Court challenge to the coroner's ruling brought by Mrs May.

The judges agreed with Lady Justice Hallett's interpretation of Rule 17 of the Coroners Rules 1984, which allows a coroner to exclude the public from hearings in the interests of national security.

But they said this does not include "interested persons" who are legally entitled to be represented at an inquest, such as the relatives of the 52 victims of the 7/7 attacks.

Lord Justice Stanley Burnton noted that agreeing to the Home Secretary's argument that the coroner could choose who to exclude from closed hearings would involve "rewriting Rule 17".

He said: "The contention that the coroner has an implied power to hold secret sessions when she considers that it would be in the interests of national security to do so is hopeless.

"Rule 17 prescribes the power of the coroner in such circumstances.

The hearing also heard from a man who lost a leg in the attack and picked up his badly damaged limb to make his way off the train.

Paul Glennerster managed to get on to the tracks but could not go any further and had to be stretchered to the surface by four policemen. His family had an agonising wait until 10pm that night before they learned he had survived.

Mr Glennerster described the moment when teenage suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay detonated his device on a Piccadilly line train.

"Not really a bang or anything like that, just a kind of pop and everything going grey and a buzzing noise. "I'm assuming that my ears were damaged so I guess that's what it was."

The hearing continues.