The recent decision of Holmes v CC Merseyside Police [2018] EWHC 1026 (QB) confirms the power of the police to arrest individuals who are not acting unlawfully. It relies on the earlier case of CPS v McCann [2015] EWHC 2461; [2016] 1 Cr. App. R. 6, which held that an arresting officer was acting in the execution of their duty when making an arrest notwithstanding that their suspicion that that offences were being committed being mistaken.
In Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2018] UKSC 4, the Supreme Court made significant inroads into the principle that the police cannot be sued in negligence save in exceptional circumstances as a result of alleged failures in their core operational duties. Now, where a third party such as a pedestrian is injured as a result of a negligent arrest on the street by a police officer, the police are liable in negligence where that injury was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the police’s actions
This is the most important police law case for a generation. It goes to the heart of when a duty of care will be imposed on the police for the performance of their operational duties. The news is very bad if you are a Chief Constable. The news is very good if you are a claimant (or defendant) lawyer.
The case of Durrant v Chief Constable of Avon & Somerset Constabulary [2017] EWCA Civ 1808, which arose out of the arrest of Ms Durrant on 13 June 2009, seems finally to have come to a conclusion, after three visits to the Court of Appeal. It is worth reading for its discussion on the award of damages for injury to “loss of feelings” where the police have racially discriminated against a person whom they have arrested and when aggravated and/or exemplary damages will be awarded.
Lavender J in MLIA & CLEL v Chief Constable of Hampshire [2017] EWHC 292 (QB) has offered helpful guidance on the application of the limitation defence for human rights claims, in a case which failed to meet the threshold for engaging the investigative duty under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention.
The Claimants were a mother and daughter who had been victims of abusive, aggressive, violent and threatening behaviour perpetrated by the First Claimant’s former partner prior to November 2005. Following an order by Master McCloud that there should be a trial of liability, the issues before Lavender J were:
1. Whether the claim had been commenced within “such… period as the court… considers equitable having regard to all the circumstances” pursuant to section 7(5)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998;
2. Whether Article 3 and/or Article 8 were engaged and, if so, whether the Defendant had acted in a manner which was incompatible with the duty imposed by those Articles, in particular by failing to investigate the Claimants’ allegations.
It sometimes vexes police lawyers – how the police can be a prosecutor for the purpose of malicious prosecution when it is the Crown Prosecution Service that makes the decision to prosecute. Further, it has not always been easy to identify what acts of officers can result in liability for misfeasance in a public office. In Rees v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2017] EWHC 273 (QB), Mitting J explained both of these – disagreeing with some previous cases and explaining others.