Police Law Blog European Decisions Statutory Materials

A higher test of necessity for arrest?

In Rashid v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [2020] EWHC 2522 (QB) the High Court (Lavender J) has allowed an appeal against a Recorder’s decision to dismiss a general practitioner’s claim for wrongful arrest, on the basis that the officers involved lacked reasonable grounds for believing the arrest was necessary. It follows recent cases in articulating a higher bar for the police to show reasonable grounds for necessity to arrest than perhaps had been thought to apply. It also raises interesting arguments about whether any other defences, such as the “Lumba/Parker” issue or ex turpi causa (the defence of illegality) might be available where an arrest has been unlawful.

€12,000 for unnecessary and disproportionate police use of Taser (and subsequent failure to investigate this)

In Znakovas v Lithuania [2019] ECHR 820, the European Court of Human Rights held that where police officers used a Taser to subdue an arrested person being taken in a police car to a police station and there was then a subsequent failure to investigate the force used, both matters amounted to a breach of Article 3, justifying damages of €12,000.

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

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

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

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.