Public misconduct hearings

Written by: Elliot Gold
Published: 18 January 2016

Public hearings in police misconduct hearings are new. As a result, panel chairs are just working their way around what is required and when to exclude the public. The bar for excluding members of the public and not naming officers is very high – as made clear by Solicitors Regulation Authority v Spector [2016] EWHC 37 (Admin). It concerns solicitors but the principles are transferable (with some key caveats, which I have not gone into here). The result is that there will be a strong presumption that police misconduct hearings be heard in public, including permitting all members of the public and the naming of all persons involved. A panel chair does have a power to restrict the public elements of a hearing but only in exceptional circumstances.

When warrants go wrong

Written by: Stephen Morley
Published: 22 December 2015

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

Written by: Jamie Mathieson
Published: 10 December 2015

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’.