Not discrimination to pay male officers less for shared parental leave than female officers on maternity leave

Written by: Dijen Basu KC
Published: 28 May 2019

The Court of Appeal in (1) Capita Customer Management Ltd v Ali & (2) Chief Constable of Leicestershire v Hextall [2019] EWCA Civ 900, has overturned the Employment Appeal Tribunal and held that employees do not unlawfully discriminate against men when when paying them less for shared parental leave than they pay women when taking enhanced maternity pay as part of maternity leave. Such claims are not sex discrimination claims but equal terms claims, to be brought under the Equal Pay Act 1970, which are bound to fail because they relate to terms of work affording special treatment to woman in connection with pregnancy of childbirth. An appeal to the Supreme Court is possible.

Unlawful arrest – inadequate grounds for suspecting person to be guilty of an offence

Written by: Elliot Gold
Published: 10 May 2019

Where a court finds a wrongful arrest, it is often due to inadequate grounds for belief in its necessity. However, a brief judgment in Smith v Police Service for Northern Ireland [2019] NIQB 39 is a demonstration of where there is a lack of reasonable suspicion that the person arrested has, themselves, committed the offence. Also of interest is the sum for damages – £3,550 for the unlawful arrest and ten hours’ consequent unlawful detention.

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.