“The ideologies of this group were concerning,” an expert was quoted as saying, “and they genuinely believed that they had the power to construct their own legal system, threaten others, and [that they] were above the law.” In the U.S., that’s a winning electoral platform, but the four people in this story have the bad luck to live in the United Kingdom.

Belief is one thing, no matter how odd, but these four acted on their beliefs illegally and with weirdness aforethought. Specifically, they barged into the Essex Coroner’s Service last April carrying handcuffs and announcing they were there to arrest the senior coroner. He wasn’t there at the time, so they settled for threatening a different one. According to her, the four accused her of “interfering with the dead.” Which, in a sense, is what coroners do at least some of the time. It’s just not illegal for them.

Who is the coroner and what does the coroner do? Those are the two questions on this Essex-coroner-related FAQ page, so I have answers. In this context, the coroner is “an independent judicial officer appointed by the Crown,” and he or she is responsible for investigating (1) violent or unnatural deaths, (2) sudden deaths with no known cause, (3) reported deaths in custody, and (4) treasure finds. So that’s pretty much—wait. “Treasure finds”? Yes. We’ll come back to that. But in general, coroners investigate suspicious deaths in proceedings called “inquests.” These might or might not involve a post-mortem; if they do, a pathologist does that.

So what problem did these people have with the Essex coroner? There’s no FAQ for that, and after reading several reports I really have no idea except that it involves them being idiots. Specifically, they are the kind of idiots often called “sovereign citizens” because the only legal sovereign(s) they recognize is themselves. The upside of membership in that club is that you don’t have to pay taxes or follow any other so-called “laws”! The downside is that yes you do, because your legal arguments are bullshit, but you didn’t, so welcome to jail. See, e.g., “Did Congress Forgive All Your Debts by Passing a Law Nobody Knows About Because of 9/11?” (Aug. 17, 2022) (hint: nope); “Sovereign Citizen Convinces Jury He Is Innocent of No Charges” (May 2, 2017).

The leader of the Essex group, an idiot named Mark Christopher, had declared himself the “chief judge” of a “Federal Postal Court” and also “Sheriff-Coroner: England and All Dominions.” Not that he had any legal authority or legitimacy for this, but he did get a logo made that he stuck to the side of his car (see above), so I guess that’s something. Apparently, having declared himself “Sheriff-Coroner,” he could brook no other coroners within his domain, and so off they went to arrest the closest one.

The senior coroner at that location had previously received threatening letters from the group, accusing him of being a “detrimental necromancer.” “I thought this was odd, to say the least,” the senior coroner told the BBC, in what seems like a very British thing to say. I like the phrase a lot, both because it sounds like a Queensrÿche song title and because it concedes there might be beneficial necromancers out there. (“Necromancy” is often equated with “black magic” but technically it just means trying to learn stuff by talking to the dead. Sure, that could be bad, but maybe you just need directions or something?) But what these people meant by it is not at all clear.

Anyway, having stormed in to confront the senior necromancer, but finding him absent, the group “served” some documents purporting to be “warrants” and then left without doing any more damage. They were arrested by real authorities later that day.

At trial, the defendants’ testimony was about as coherent as you’d expect. In general they claimed to have been trying to “shed light” on the “fraud” perpetrated by the court, although one also “claimed to have been acting with King Charles III’s approval to tackle ‘state child trafficking.'” Turns out neither part of that is true. The Sheriff-Coroner of the Federal Postal Court for England and All Dominions didn’t testify, being at least marginally smarter than the others. They made some effort to blame their leader for having a cult-like sway over them, but the jury convicted them all anyway. In October a judge sentenced Christopher to seven years in jail and gave the minions 30-month sentences each.

Oh, I promised to come back to the treasure issue. In the UK, coroners not only investigate suspicious deaths but also have jurisdiction over treasure finds. In fact, according to the Essex Coroner’s Office, “[i]f you think you’ve found treasure, you must report it to the Coroner within 14 days via the ‘Finds Liaison Officer.’ It’s a criminal offence not to do so.” The coroner will then investigate the matter. If it turns out to be Potential Treasure (their capital letters, not mine), an inquest will follow to determine whether it’s Actual Treasure. This page helpfully defines what counts as “treasure” under the Treasure Act 1996. It looks like it has to be more than 300 years old. We don’t have any of that here, but over there they do. And I guess it makes sense that the coroner would have jurisdiction over that, because Actual Treasure more than 300 years old will often be in the clutches of … well, you know. At least that’s how it is in the movies.