Coroner told to watch his words

A CORONER who told a black community it was time to ‘pay back’ efforts to accommodate them into a multicultural society by helping police catch the killers of two teenage girls was warned by Britain’s Home Secretary to be careful with his language.

Birmingham coroner Aidan Cotter said the community in the city's Aston district, where black cousins Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare were gunned down, had a duty to help police with their murder inquiry.

He told the opening of the inquest into 18-year-old Charlene's death: "Birmingham prides itself on being a multiracial city and the authorities go to great lengths to try to accommodate everybody's customs, practices and beliefs.