Police Law Blog European Decisions Statutory Materials

When warrants go wrong

  • Section 59 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 empowers the Crown Court to authorise continued detention of property seized pursuant to a warrant that is, or might be, unlawful.
  • The High Court has recently confirmed that an application pursuant to section 59 may be made notwithstanding that there may be outstanding judicial review proceedings challenging the legality of the warrant.

Low threshold for an inquest jury

  • An inquest jury should have been called where a vulnerable witness fell ill and died in a police station.
  • The requirement for a jury where death results from the act or omission of a police officer is a ‘low threshold’.
  • The threshold can be cleared by suspicion that the police could or should have done more to prevent the death of someone who ‘needed looking after’.

Gangbos – all in it together

  • Injunctions to prevent gang-related violence, pursuant to Policing and Crime Act 2009 section 34.
  • Orders are not confined to restraining particular conduct relating to the individual.
  • The court is entitled to consider the conduct attributed to the gang as a whole.

Football banning orders – all or nothing

  • A football banning order must apply to all regulated matches.
  • A magistrates’ court may not permit a person to attend some matches but not others.
  • Attendance at a football match does not engage article 8.

Damages for unlawful arrest, consequent assault and unlawful detention

  • The High Court assessed damages for three Claimants at £2,500, £11,950 and £7,000.
  • Police officers’ denying the allegations against them during disciplinary investigations and a criminal trial could not sound in aggravated damages;
  • No damages for being cross-examined robustly by the officers’ counsel in criminal proceedings.