Richardson v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police [2011] EWHC 773 (QB); [2011] WLR (D) 116
“Before a police officer made an arrest, pursuant to section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, he had to consider, in accordance with the requirements of section 24(4), whether arrest was necessary or whether voluntary attendance at a police station would achieve the objective that he wished to secure.”
Neutral Citation Number: [2011] EWHC 773 (QB)
Extract from a judgement made in The High Court of Justice on the 29th March 2011
The Claimant, a thirty-nine year old teacher of good character, claims that he was unlawfully arrested and detained on 16th December 2009. He asserts that following an allegation that he had assaulted a pupil he was wrongfully arrested and that his detention thereafter was unlawful. He had attended a police station voluntarily to be interviewed. It is said that his arrest was unlawful because the arresting officer had no or no reasonable grounds for considering that his arrest was necessary: a precondition imposed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (‘PACE’) Section 24(4) by an amendment effective from 1st January 2006. The Claimant claims damages for false imprisonment. The Claimant also seeks mandatory injunctions requiring the Defendant to destroy DNA samples, fingerprints and photographs taken as a consequence of his arrest and to delete or amend the entry of his arrest on the Police National Computer (‘PNC’) …..
…… For the reasons given I make a declaration that the arrest of the Claimant on 16th December 2009 was unlawful. His claim for false imprisonment consequent upon the unlawful arrest succeeds.
… The parties instead agreed damages for false imprisonment in the sum of £1,000 and that is the sum that I award.
About BAILII
This case seems trivial, especially when one considers that no major harm was done to Mr. Richardson given that he was being questioned at the station anyway. This is reflected in the small damages awarded. Most people would draw a line under such an incident and not bring such an action at all. Would you? But, I take my hat off to him. Without cases of principle, such as this, the police will continue to bend the legislation for the sake of procedure without due regard to the law, or, indeed, the assumption at the common law that depriving someone of their liberty is no small matter.
I have written up a longer article on the case (http://www.alexanderamatosi.com/law/2011/4/12/a-matter-of-principle.html) if anyone is interested or wants to find out more about it.