Tuckers successfully bring action against police.

The claimant and his friends were stopped on the motorway as they were on their way to London to join up with the convoy. The claimant was arrested along with others on suspicion that he was a terrorist. He was detained in custody for a number of days. His detention was extended by the Court following an appearance via video link.

When the claimant was arrested his passport was seized by the police and was not returned to him until a couple of weeks after his release from custody.

Claims were brought for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment, trespass to property, trespass to goods and also claims under the Human Rights Act 1998 for violations of the claimant’s Convention rights under Articles 5, 8, 18 and Article 1 of the First Protocol. The Claimant asserted that he was not involved in acts of terrorism.

Liability was denied on behalf of the police.

Court proceedings were issued. A Defence was served denying liability. No detail as to why the Claimant was suspected was put forward. The police ultimately settled the claim. The issues in the case included the following:-

1. It was alleged by the Claimant that the arrest was carried out due to an improper purpose. An arrest will be justified under domestic law if the arresting officer has reasonable grounds to suspect the arrested person is a terrorist. What matters is what is in the arresting officer’s mind. In a large police operation like this the arresting officer is reliant on information he receives from a third party. An arresting officer is unlikely to have access to details of the particular motives behind the arrest. The officer simply acts on the basis of the information he is given. Therefore it is difficult to successfully allege the arresting officer’s motive when arresting is improper. In this case it was alleged that the claimant was arrested not for the purposes of brining him before the Court, but for the purposes of preventing him from leaving the country on the convoy. The difficulty in succeeding with that argument in a wrongful arrest/false imprisonment case is that it is unlikely that the arresting officer would have known the true motive. Therefore, as well as wrongful arrest/false imprisonment claim a claim was brought under the Human Rights Act 1998 for a violation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was the claimant’s contention that Article 5 was wide enough to cover not only the actions of the arresting officer but the actions of the officers who made the decision to arrest. Therefore if the decision makers had an improper motive but the arresting officer did not, the claimant could still succeed. Further, the Article 5 claim also covered the situation where the decision makers passed to the arresting officer erroneous or inaccurate information which led to the officer to reasonably suspect the claimant of being a terrorist. It was contended that in such a situation the arrest would be lawful under recognised principles in false imprisonment claims but there would be a violation of Article 5 due to the arbitrary acts of the decision makers.

2. Whilst the claimant was in custody his detention was extended by the Court. Article 5.3 of ECHR provides the right of an individual following arrest to be brought promptly before a Court following his arrest.. In 2008 and 2009 European Committee for the prevention of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment reported to the UK government that detained persons must be physically brought before a judicial authority. They considered that the procedure that the UK adopted by using video link for the first appearance at Court was a violation of Article 5.3. The claimant alleged in his case that his appearance by way of video link violated Article 5.3.

3. A violation of Article 18 of the ECHR was alleged. Article 18 of the Convention states that the restrictions permitted under the Convention to a persons rights shall not be applied for any purpose other than those for which they have been prescribed. It was alleged on behalf of the claimant that he was not arrested for the purposes of brining him before a Court (which would have been the proper motive for the arrest), but to prevent him leaving the country. It was further alleged on the claimant’s behalf that his passport was retained solely to prevent him leaving the country. Article 18 would still be violated if there was a dual purpose behind the arrest. Therefore if the claimant was arrested partly for the purpose of bringing him before the Court and party for the purposes of preventing him leaving the country, then it was argued that there was a violation of Article 18.

We are not aware of any reported case where any of the above three matters have been raised before. In fact we are not aware of any case at all where such matters have been raised.

The claimant was represented at the police station by our Police Station Team. The claimant was therefore provided with a seamless service between the criminal proceedings and the civil proceedings. The experience within the firm of terrorism law meant that ideas could be bounced off other fee earners. The client was based in the North of the country and the claim could be allocated to our Manchester office to deal. The Claimant was conducted by Keiron Walsh who advised the claimant throughout the conduct of the claim.

Seamless service from criminal department to civil department. Our Manchester office was able to provide a local service to the claimant.