AMONG the recipients of the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours is a former Wrexham woman who is the country’s busiest coroner.

Barrister Caroline Beasley-Murray has been Chief Coroner for Essex since 2000 and handles about 7,500 deaths a year.

The mother-of-four was born and brought up in Wrexham and attended Grove Park Girls’ School, where her mother, Mavis Griffiths, taught. Her father, Maelor Griffiths, was head of art at Ruabon Grammar School.

Mrs Beasley-Murray, who graduated at Girton College, Cambridge, is married to the Rev. Dr Paul Beasley-Murray, a baptist minister and author.

In 2018-19 she served as President of the Coroners’ Society, and her OBE was awarded for services to the coronial service.

She has been involved in numerous high-profile inquests including that into the death of Stuart Lubbock, who was found dead in the swimming-pool of TV star Michael Barrymore, and that of Prodigy singer Keith Flint.

In 2005 she was delegated to oversee the repatriation of the victims of the Sharm-el-Sheikh bombing in Egypt and she is also dealing with the ongoing case of the 39 Vietnamese who suffocated in a container in Grays, Essex.