Photo by Olivia Hemingway/Millennium Image, UK On 20 December 2024, a handful of people filed into the coroner’s court in Chelmsford for a short hearing. They were there to mark the official end of the state’s involvement with Hailey Thompson’s life. “It was a documentary inquest,” explained Daniel Rees, the court reporter who attended from local paper The Daily Gazette . “Documentary inquests can be as short as five minutes. Sometimes they can be 15 minutes, but they’re never particularly long,” he said. The coroner and their officers had all the information they needed to ascertain how Hailey Thompson died and there was nothing more to be said – at least officially.  The five-month-old passed away on 2 April 2024. She and her parents were living in temporary accommodation provided by the local council. However, they were all sharing a bed as no cot had been provided for Hailey to sleep in, contrary to guidance issued by central government just a month before her death.…