Family still waiting for inquest four years after baby Jacob died

Kianty and Conor Simpson still have their son Jacob’s ashes at home because the inquest that should explain his death has never been held. Four years after the baby died at just four days old, the Lincolnshire parents still do not have a death certificate, leaving them in a bureaucratic limbo that has outlasted the brief life they lost.

Jacob Simpson died in June 2022 after suffering a lack of oxygen to his brain during his birth at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen. Days later, his life support machine was turned off. What should have followed was a swift process of legal and medical scrutiny, but instead the family has spent years waiting for the formal hearing that would allow them to understand what happened and complete the practical steps that follow a death.

The coroner for Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire has apologised for the delay and said Jacob’s case was now a “priority”. That assurance has not yet resolved the family's basic problem: without an inquest, the death certificate remains outstanding, and without that paperwork, the Simpsons cannot bring final closure to the loss of their baby.

Jacob’s case also throws a harsher light on wider concerns about inquest delays in England and Wales. Families and lawyers have warned that long waits for hearings can prolong grief, leave parents without answers, and stall the official record of how a death happened. In cases involving infants, the delay can be especially punishing because the paperwork is bound up with the most immediate rites of mourning, including registering the death and deciding what happens to ashes.

The questions around Jacob’s death are heightened by Glangwili Hospital’s recent history. In 2018, about £25 million was invested in the Carmarthen hospital after Healthcare Inspectorate Wales said its maternity services were “not fit for purpose”. The regulator found that many aspects of the service failed to meet acceptable standards, adding to concern over the treatment of vulnerable mothers and babies there.

Jacob’s case is not the only baby-death investigation linked to Glangwili. In another inquest, Callum James was found to have died following acute blood loss during delivery at the hospital in May 2016. Together, the cases show how delays, repeated investigations and prior warnings can leave families trapped between grief and unresolved accountability, waiting years for institutions to say plainly what happened to their children.