The Northern Ireland High Court in C (A Person under a Disability) v Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland [2020] NIQB 3 has awarded damages of £16,500 for a breach of article 3 in respect of a failure by the police to conduct a proper investigation into the reported rape of a twenty-year-old woman with Asperger’s syndrome.
In R (Short) v (1) Police Misconduct Tribunal (2) Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police [2020] EWHC 385 (Admin), Mr Justice Saini delivered a resounding reaffirmation that misconduct hearing panels are well able to put irrelevant and prejudicial matters out of their minds rather than having to recuse themselves and that they are able to determine their own procedures, just like civil courts and tribunals.
The case of R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police & Information Commissioner [2019] EWHC 2341 (Admin); [2020] 1 WLR 672 is said to have been the first claim brought before a court anywhere on planet earth concerning the use by police of automated facial recognition (“AFR”) technology. There could be nothing wrong with posting scores of police officers with eidetic memories to look out for up to a 800 wanted persons at public gatherings. So why not use a powerful computer, capable of matching 50 faces a second with a database of (under) 800 suspects, to do this job much more cheaply and instantaneously, flagging any matches to a human operator for final assessment? According to the Divisional Court in Bridges, this may, depending on the facts of each particular deployment, be lawful.
The European Court of Human Rights continues to make clear that a failure by member states to protect women from domestic violence will amount to a breach of article 3. The latest decision in Affaire Buturuga v Romania (App No. 56867/15), available only in French, found a breach of Articles 3 and 8 in respect of a failure to investigate adequately and/or take action on complaints of domestic violence and awarded €10,000 general damages.
The European Court of Human Rights continues to make clear that a failure by member states to protect women from domestic violence will amount to a breach of Article 3. The latest decision in Affaire Buturuga v Romania (App No. 56867/15), available only in French, found a breach of Articles 3 and 8 in respect of a failure to investigate adequately and/or take action on complaints of domestic violence and awarded €10,000 general damages.