Hough v Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police

[Mary Kirwan]

Quite bizarre.

The entire issue should revolve around whether the belief was reasonable,
which has to involve a consideration of the information in the computer
record. If it said 'Johnny likes to wear a red hat', that I presume would
not suffice to found a reasonably held suspicion of likely wrongdoing..

Even if the information in the record was highly sensitive, enough of it
would have to be revealed to properly ground the suspicion, or the arrest
should not stand - the need to uphold the legality of the arrest would have
to yield to the necessity to protect the sensitive information. Cant say I
understand the argument here, even at a stretch.=20

Mary Kirwan
=20
-----Original Message-----
From: Donald ramsbottom [mailto:donald@ramsbottom.co.uk]
Sent: 16 February 2001 07:04
To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Subject: Hough v Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police


From Yesterdays Times Law report. An entry on the Police computer justified
the arrest there was no other evidence of wrong doing. This opens a whole
can of worms I think. Selfmade "evidence" to justify arrest springs to mind
among others. Anyhow, as ever, do not read if not interested.




Hough v Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police
Before Lord Justice Simon Brown and Lord Justice Longmore
Judgment January 16, 2001
Where on the basis of information on the police national computer
a police constable made an arrest which later formed the basis of
an action for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment, the critical
issue in determining the lawfulness of the arrest was whether the
arresting constable had acted reasonably in acting on the
information.

It was not relevant to consider whether the officer who made the
computer entry had had reasonable grounds for placing the
information on the computer.

The Court of Appeal so held, allowing an appeal by the Chief
Constable of Staffordshire Police against the judgment of Judge
Edwards, QC, at Chester County Court on June 22, 2000 for the
claimant, Gary Hough, with damages of =A310,000 plus =A3600
interest for wrongful arrest, assault and false imprisonment.

The claimant was a passenger in a car stopped by a police patrol
car on a motorway because of a damaged windscreen. A routine
check on the police computer revealed an entry concerning the
owner of the car, warning officers that the occupant might be
armed with a firearm.

An armed response team was summoned and the claimant was
arrested, handcuffed, searched and taken to a police station. No
weapon was found on his person or in the vehicle.

Later the claimant was released from custody. He brought an
action for damages.

Section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
provides:

"(6) Where a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that
an arrestable offence has been committed, he may arrest without a
warrant anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to
be guilty of an offence."

Mr Mark Turner, QC, for the chief constable; the claimant did not
appear and was not represented.

LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN said that having accepted
that the arresting officer genuinely suspected the claimant to be
guilty of the unlawful possession of a firearm, the judge turned to
the critical question: whether, considered objectively, reasonable
grounds existed for the constable's suspicion.

The judge concluded that the burden of proof went back to the
stage of the officer who placed the entry on the police national
computer.

It was the chief constable's central contention on the appeal that
the evidence of the officer who placed the information was in fact
immaterial: the only relevant information was that in the mind of the
arresting officer.

The judge was much influenced by an obiter dictum of Mr Justice
Forbes in Millington v Commissioner of Police of the
Metropolis (The Times May 28, 1983) referred to in a footnote
in Clayton and Tomlinson's publication Civil Actions Against the
Police (2nd edition (1992) pp175-176).

It was implicit in that approach that, depending on the
circumstances of the arrest, what might be required to determine
whether reasonable grounds existed for suspicion was investigation
not of what was in the mind of the arresting officer but rather of
what was in the mind of some other officer who instructed or
requested the first officer to make the arrest or who provided the
information which, reasonably or otherwise, caused that officer to
form a genuine suspicion and make the arrest.

That approach could not live with the House of Lords decision in
O'Hara v Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
((1997) AC 286) in which it was held that the only relevant
matters were those present in the mind of the arresting officer.

O'Hara was decided after Clayton and Tomlinson wrote their
book. It was, however, decided three years before judgment in
the present case and it was a matter of surprise and regret that it
was not brought to the judge's attention.

Both parties had been represented by counsel although not
counsel acting in the appeal.

The principle established, although on consideration of a different
question, necessarily extended to encompass a case like the
present.

The critical question to be asked in all cases was what was in the
mind of the arresting officer: he could never be a mere conduit for
someone else. It was for that reason insufficient for an arresting
officer to rely solely upon an instruction to carry out the arrest.

Conversely, however, where the arresting officer's suspicion was
formed on the basis of a police national computer entry, that entry
was likely to provide the necessary objective justification.

After all, if, as the authorities clearly established, information from
an informer or member of the public could properly found
suspicion for an arrest, why too should not an apparently
appropriate entry in the computer? That was not to say that any
computer entry would of itself necessarily justify an arrest. If there
was no urgency in the situation and if in the light of the whole
surrounding circumstances (see O'Hara at p298) some further
inquiry was clearly called for before suspicion could properly
crystallise, then the entry alone would not suffice.

Even, moreover, when, as here, the entry of itself provided
sufficient justification for an arrest, that might not leave the
aggrieved citizen entirely without remedy. Certainly it would defeat
a claim for wrongful arrest.

Perhaps, however, a claim in negligence would lie against an
officer making the entry in the first place, or perhaps for failing
later to relive it, if it could be established that he had no proper
basis for ever having made it.

In considering any such claim, of course, one would recognise that
the computer entry of itself was likely to lead to just such an arrest
as occurred in the present case.

Some support for a cause of action being available against the
police in such circumstances could be found in the unreported
decision in Clarke v Crew on May 28, 1999 (Court of Appeal
(Civil Division) Transcript No 0891 of 1999).

That, however, was a question for the future.

Lord Justice Longmore agreed.

Solicitors: Grindeys, Stoke on Trent.

Donald Ramsbottom BA LLb (Hons) PGdip
Ramsbottom & Co Solicitors
Internet and Global Encryption Law Specialists & General UK  Law Matters
5 Seagrove Avenue Hayling Island Hampshire UK
Tel (44) 023 9246 5931 Fax (44) 023 9246 8349
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