No necessity to arrest where person voluntarily attended police station

Written by: Elliot Gold
Published: 30 April 2019

Every police officer knows they must have a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed an offence in order to arrest them. But that is only half of what is required. The second element is that they must have a reasonable belief in the necessity for the person’s arrest. The recent decision of Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police v MR [2019] EWHC 888 (QB) is one of a number of recent cases where appellate judgments have sought to tighten-up what the police must show in order to prove necessity.

In the instant case, a woman ‘A’ and her partner ‘MR’ had been in a relationship for fifteen months. A complained to the police about MR, who could not be traced save for a mobile telephone number. A police officer called MR on 11 January 2010, who then attended a police station for voluntary interview on 12 January 2010. Whilst at the police station and before being interviewed, MR was arrested on suspicion of harassment. He was interviewed, photographed, and had his fingerprints and DNA samples taken. After nearly seven hours, the police released him on conditional bail. He claimed that the arrest and consequent detention was unlawful and was subsequently successful in the county-court. The Comissioner appealed to the High Court.

Supreme Court decision on breach of peace in Hicks affirmed by European Court of Human Rights

Written by: Elliot Gold
Published: 25 April 2019

In the case of Eiseman Renyard and Others v United Kingdom (2019) Application no. 57884/17, the European Court of Human Rights has declined to disturb the decision of the Supreme Court in R (Hicks) v Comr Metropolitan Police[2017] UKSC 9; [2017] AC 256, concerning the arrest and detention of royal wedding protesters, for breach of the peace.

As stated in the blog post discussing the decision of the Supreme Court, the police arrested a number of individuals on 29th April 2011, which was the day of the royal wedding, took them into police custody and released them without charge once the pageant was over. The justification was that the arrests were said to be necessary to prevent an imminent breach of the peace – the violent disruption of the wedding. No-one was brought before a court as foreseen by Article 5(1)(c) of the Convention.

The Catt that got the cream – retention of data concerning peaceful protestor was an unlawful interference with article 8

Written by: Rebecca de Hoest
Published: 15 April 2019

In Catt v United Kingdom [2019] ECHR 76, the European Court departed from and disagreed with the Supreme Court, holding that the police’s collection and retention of data of a peaceful protestor was an unlawful interference with Article 8 of the Convention.

Mr Catt was a 94-year-old man from Brighton; a peaceful protestor who regularly attended public demonstrations since 1947. In 2005, he began attending demonstrations held by ‘Smash EDO’. Although there was often serious disorder and criminality at Smash EDO’s protests, Mr Catt only ever attended in a peaceful capacity and was never charged with anything.

In 2010, he made a ‘subject access request’ to the police, to identify what records, if any, they held on him. The police disclosed sixty-six entries identifying his attending protests between 2005 and 2009. Some were EDO Smash protests, many were other protests. All of these records were held on the police’s “Extremism Database”.

The Association of Chief Police Officers, ‘ACPO’, refused to delete the entries on Mr Catt. They failed to give any reasons for this refusal, and so Mr Catt judicially reviewed ACPO’s decision. In so doing, he claimed a breach of his article 8 right to privacy.

Retention of crime reports about alleged teenage ‘sexting’ did not breach Article 8

Written by: Debra Powell KC
Published: 9 April 2019

In R (CL) v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester & Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 3333 (Admin), the Divisional Court held that the retention by the police of crime reports which related to sexting incidents in which a schoolboy had allegedly been involved did not breach his rights under Article 8 ECHR.

The decision confirmed that the retention of data by the police in accordance with the prevailing regulatory and statutory data protection framework and relevant guidance was in accordance with the law for the purposes of Article 8(2) whether the alleged offender was an adult or a child.

The duty to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children did not mandate the deletion of data: the best interests of any children concerned was a primary, but not determinative, consideration.

Protecting Community Protection Notices

Written by: Frances McClenaghan
Published: 31 January 2019

A defendant cannot defend himself from prosecution for breach of a Community Protection Notice (‘CPN’), on the basis that the CPN is invalid. The reason, stated in Stannard v The Crown Prosecution Service [2019] EWHC 84 (Admin), is that there is an effective means to challenge the CPN – either by exercising the right of statutory appeal or by judicial review. Allowing a challenge to the validity of the CPN at trial is not what the relevant statute (the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, ‘the 2014 Act’) intends, nor is it an effective remedy because the person subject to a CPN should not be required to breach a CPN in order to exercise a right to challenge it.