England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

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Cite as: [1982] EWCA Civ 7, [1982] Crim LR 600

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		BAILII Citation Number: [1982] EWCA Civ 7
		Case No. 1977 B. No. 3198

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(MR. JUSTICE CAULFIELD)

Royal Courts of Justice

18th May 1982

B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE WALLER
LORD JUSTICE O'CONNOR
SIR GEORGE BAKER
____________________

	REYNOLDS
	v.
	COMMISSIONER OF POLICE FOR THE METROPOLIS

____________________

(Transcript of the Shorthand Notes of The Association of Official Shorthandwriters Ltd., Room 392 Royal Courts of Justice and 2, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London, N.C.2.)

____________________

MR L. MARSHALL (instructed by R.E.T. Birch, Esq., Solicitor, Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard) appeared on behalf of the Appellants.
MRS P.A. REYNOLDS (the Respondent) was present in Court in person.
____________________

HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
____________________

(REVISED)

LORD JUSTICE WALLER: This is an appeal against an award of damages in favour of the Plaintiff, Mrs Reynolds, which was made by a Jury in a trial before Mr Justice Caulfield in the High Court in February of last year.

The claim was made by Mrs Reynolds for damages for false imprisonment, and the sum awarded by the Jury was £12,000.

This appeal is brought on behalf of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis on three main grounds:

(l) that a ruling which was made by the learned Judge in the course of the case that there were no reasonable grounds for suspecting Mrs Reynolds of being guilty of an arrestable offence was wrong;

(2) if it was not wrong, then there were directions in the course of the learned Judge's summing-up to the Jury on damages which invalidate the award which the Jury made; and

(3) if that submission were wrong, that the figure of £12,000 was too high — so high, that no reasonable Jury could have arrived at that figure.

The outline of the facts of the case is this: The Police were making very widespread enquiries into fires which had occurred at houses in East Anglia, which they suspected were not accidental because in those cases there were claims for insurance on a reinstatement basis, so that a house bought for a comparatively small sum and then insured on a reinstatement basis, would (if there was a fire) produce a very large profit indeed. So enquiries were being made over a wide area.

There was somebody else who was largely responsible for this outbreak of fires, but a time came when the Police had suspicions about Mr Reynolds — the Plaintiff's common-law husband — who lived at a house called Bardwell Hall in East Anglia and who they thought was connected with one or two other fires.

In particular, there was a fire at a building known as The Maltings on the 9th November 1973? which had been purchased in 1970 by a company of which Mr Reynolds was the principal shareholder. That building had been bought for a comparatively small sum (apparently for some £6,000) but it had been insured for the sum of just over half a million pounds. Therefore, when it was destroyed by fire there was a claim made upon it for a sum of money of that order. In fact, the sum which was recovered in the trial was a lesser sum which was accepted as a settlement when an appeal was made.

As I have said, the enquiries being made by the Police were very widespread. Suspicions fixed on a house called Coldham Hall Farm because there had been a fire there and Mr Reynolds in fact owned the land nearby. Also, there was an incident connected with a bulldozer, so that the Police had grounds for suspecting that Mr Reynolds had obtained money from insurers by deception.

There was another man called Allan who was also an object of suspicion. It was thought that he had been concerned with a number of fires. He had a mistress who, when suspicion began to fix on him, became the person who bought houses rather than Mr Allan himself.

So when the Police were looking at the case of Mr Reynolds, they found he was living with a lady, the Plaintiff, and they also found that she was connected with a company which had been formed by Mr Reynolds — although the Police Officer at the trial was not able to remember the name of it or whether it was in fact the company which bought The Maltings.

However, the time came when a number of arrests were being made — some 20 or 30 people in and around East Anglia — and one of the arrests which was going to be made was at Bardwell Hall, where Mr Reynolds and the Plaintiff lived.

There was a meeting of Police in the early hours of the morning of the 23rd February 1976 and at that meeting Superintendent Gilson (who was in charge of this part of the operation) decided that not only should Mr Reynolds be arrested, but that Mrs Reynolds should be arrested also.

The grounds which existed for arresting Mrs Reynolds of being concerned with obtaining money by deceit were that she was living with Mr Reynolds. I think it was at the back of the Police Officers' minds in the Allan set-up that the lady who was living with him was very much concerned. Another ground was that she was Secretary of a company, and that she had, on one occasion, been seen at The Maltings — which is some little distance from where they lived. She had been there because she helped to do some painting of the windows.

Mr Marshall added that she was aware of the fire, but that was the total amount concerning her of which the Police were aware.

The learned Judge, having posed the test, perfectly correctly and properly, that "a constable is justified in arresting a person without a Warrant upon a reasonable suspicion of a felony having been committed" — and I substitute for that an arrestable offence having been committed — "and of the person being guilty of it". Then having considered a number of other directions, which I do not need to repeat here, he then went on to evaluate the grounds of suspicion which the Police would have.

The learned Judge set them out:

(l) that Mrs Reynolds had visited The Maltings;

(2) they were informed that Mrs. Reynolds was the Secretary of Mr Reynolds, and

(3) he was living with her — and then there was the coincidence of a somewhat similar set-up with Mr Allan.

The learned Judge came to the conclusion that there were no reasonable grounds to justify a suspicion that Mrs. Reynolds was guilty of an arrestable offence and he went on to consider what would be the damages for the imprisonment which followed — to which I have not yet referred.

In my judgment, the learned Judge was quite right in his tests; there really was nothing on which the Police could have a reasonable suspicion that Mrs Reynolds was involved in the commission of an arrestable offence. I might add that, according to her evidence, she was not arrested for an arrestable offence, but was arrested for a revolver which the Police found when they came to the house.

Suffice to say in my opinion the learned Judge was absolutely right in saying there were no reasonable grounds for suspicion that Mrs Reynolds had committed an arrestable offence.

So I then go on to consider the next question. What happened when the Police arrived was that Mrs Reynolds, according to her evidence, was in her nightdress. She was in the bedroom with Mr Reynolds and her son aged 6 or 7.

The Police went into their room. She says that they went in with a dog — but there is an issue as to "Chat — and that they had a -Tarrant to search the premises. After the search was completed, she was arrested, was put into a Police car and driven away. She said she was under the impression that she was going to a local police station, either at Ixworth (which was very close) or perhaps to Bury, which was a little further away. She did not have her handbag or anything like that with her. However, by that time she was wearing some clothes and was in jeans.

Then the Police car turned off in another direction and did not go -co either Ixworth or Bury. The Police then stopped the car to make a telephone enquiry, and she was then told she was going to be taken to Limehouse — a journey of some two and a half hours' away.

So she was driven to Limehouse Police Station, where she was put into a room. She said that it was called a "detention" room, but in her evidence she said it was like "a little cell" and was left there. She described in detail the events of the day while she was there. There was an issue about some of them, but I do not think it would be helpful for me to go through the details of the events which took place during the course of that day. They were all dealt with by the learned Judge in his summing-up to the Jury; the facts were set out, and where there was an issue, that issue was correctly set out.

However, I simply go on to describe the outline, which was that Mrs Reynolds was interviewed in the course of the afternoon for an hour or so — an interview which finished at 4 o'clock, and at that stage it was decided by the Police, apparently, that they had no grounds for keeping her there. However, she was not told of this until very nearly 8 o'clock, when she was told she could go, and that they would take her back home. She did not get back to her home until something-like 11 o'clock.

Now as I say, the learned Judge, in his summing-up to the Jury, covered all those matters and covered the various individual incidents which there were arising out of her detention at the Police Station. As I say, I will not repeat them here.

In his summing-up the learned Judge started by giving the Jury directions about the measure of damage. Se invited them to be dispassionate; reminded them it was not a minor claim; said that somebody who was deprived of his or her liberty would be entitled to substantial damages, and told them to use their commonsense in arriving at what figure would be substantial damages. No complaint is made, by Mr Marshall on behalf of the Police, about that part of his directions.

But Mr Marshall submits that there was a passage a little further on in the learned Judge's summing-up which was wrong. Indeed, he submits that the learned Judge was in error in not telling the Jury that the damages had to represent compensation for what had happened. But in my judgment, while certainly the use of the word "compensation" might be helpful, the way in which the learned Judge set out his summing-up cannot be faulted for the fact he did not mention compensation.

But Mr Marshall also submits that in a passage which is at page 4 of the transcript, the learned Judge was at fault. He dealt with the degrees of contempt, pomposity and highhandedness, and said: "It is true, as learned Counsel have submitted, that the more pompous and highhanded and contemptuous and scornful the arrest is then the higher the damages. The term has been used, both quoted from Lord Justice Scott by Mr Prosset" — who was Counsel for Mrs Reynolds — "and used generally in the case, that damages cannot only be substantial for an offence, a tort of this sort, but can be exemplary. 'Exemplary damages' merely means that you are not only awarding damages which you feel are correct for the deprivation of Mrs Reynolds' liberty on 23 February but you are adding a further sum to register your own displeasure at any particular features concerning the arrest".

Now at the end of the learned Judge's summing-up, Counsel asked that the Jury should be invited to separate exemplary damages from other damages, and the learned Judge refused that, but said that in due course he would ask the Jury whether they had included an element for exemplary damages. When the Jury returned their verdict, they said that they had not included a sum for exemplary damages. Had they not said that, I would have had some doubt as to whether the learned Judge's direction, which I have just quoted, was in order. But as they said they had not included an element of exemplary damages, in my judgment that particular point does not arise.

But Mr Marshall submits that what the learned Judge was describing in the words leading up to his final sentence were really matters of aggravation, and he submits there should have been a direction to the Jury specifically mentioning "aggravation" and that this, in effect, was an attempt to do it, and the fact the Jury have decided that they did not include an element of exemplary damage in the total figure of damage indicates that they did not include matters of aggravation. I hope I have summarised Mr Marshall's submission correctly — and he also submits it indicates that the Jury did not accept some of the matters of aggravation of which Mrs Reynolds complains.

In my judgment, there is no substance in that submission. The learned Judge, at the stage which I have mentioned, had not come to deal with the matters which the Jury had to take into account; he went on and dealt with them in considerable detail, putting where there was an issue, both sides, so that the Jury could make up their minds as to where the truth lay.

At the end of his summing-up, when he had finished reminding the Jury of the various parts of the evidence of fact, he concluded in this way:

"Nell, it could be that everything that was offered to Mrs Reynolds on that particular day at Limehouse would not appear palatable to her. Indeed, would appear extremely unpalatable. It may well be that this aspect of the case may not figure very largely in your assessment of the damages, but the matter is entirely for you. There it is. There is the ordeal, such as it is, that was endured by Mrs. Reynolds on 23 February, an ordeal that was endured unlawfully.

Measure it rather than inflame it or set fire to it. Do not belittle or extinguish it. Approach your task rather coldly but accurately; and when you have decided on the amount of damages you feel should be awarded to Mrs. Reynolds you come back and tell us, through your foreman, who will speak on behalf of all of you".

In my judgment that was an eminently proper way in which to conclude his summing-up — neither on the one hand seeking to inflame the damages, nor on the other hand to diminish them, beyond what they should properly be.

I have come to the conclusion, with the possible exception of the matter to which I have referred (which does not arise) that no possible complaint can be made of the summing-up of the learned Judge. Therefore I would reject that submission made by Mr Marshall.

That leaves the final matter to be dealt with, namely, was the figure of £12,000 too high? There can be no doubt that Mrs Reynolds on this day had a very, very unpleasant experience. It follows from what I have said that she was an innocent woman who had a very disturbing and upsetting day, with her liberty taken away from her for virtually the whole of that day. The incidents which were given in evidence (which I do not here repeat) were such as to make that day (if her version of what happened is right) more unpleasant than it otherwise would have been. At the end of it all, it has never been the case that the Commissioner has accepted that this was a false imprisonment — until at any rate the trial. So that there were a number of matters which made this a serious case of false imprisonment.

I am bound to say that had I been deciding the case, the figure at which I would have arrived would not have been as high as was found by the Jury; but the test that we have to apply in a case of this sort is this: Not is that the figure at which I would have arrived? but, is that a figure which no reasonable Jury could assess on the evidence before it?

When one considers all the evidence and resolves each disputed matter in favour of Mrs Reynolds, I am quite satisfied it is impossible to say that that was a figure at which no reasonable Jury could properly arrive, and accordingly, I would dismiss this appeal.

LORD JUSTICE O'CONNOR: I agree the appeal should be dismissed for the reasons given by my Lord.

On the first submission by Mr Marshall, for the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, that the learned Judge's ruling that the Police had no reasonable grounds for suspecting the Plaintiff, Mrs Reynolds, it seems to me that when the evidence of the Police Officers concerned is examined, the reality of the matter was that they had very good grounds for suspecting Mr Reynolds as being embroiled in either obtaining, or seeking to obtain money by deception by burning down properties which he over-insured and then claiming the insurance money.

The only connection they suggested Mrs Reynolds had with that matter was that she was his common-law wife — and indeed, in giving their evidence, they said as much. Mr Gibson, who was in charge of this part of the case, simply said for this reason "she had to be in on it" — but that was not a good ground for arresting her. Then Mr Rogers, who effected her arrest, said: "Well, we arrested her because she was a secretary and she might have some information about what was going on". That simply is not a sufficient ground for having a suspicion that Mrs Reynolds was guilty of an arrestable offence.

It is important to remember that the Police are not bound to arm themselves with prima facie evidence of guilt before they make an arrest for an arrestable offence. It is quite sufficient that they have information which, as reasonable people, leads them to believe that the suspect may be guilty of the offence. If they have such material, then the fact that it turns out to be mistaken is irrelevant — otherwise the Police would be liable for false imprisonment in every case where they arrested on reasonable suspicion and, having investigated the matter, decided that their information was wrong and that there were no grounds for charging the person who had been arrested.

But that is not this case. On the second part of the case, I agree with my Lord that the learned Judge's summing-up on damages was accurate, and as far as the conduct of the Police and the treatment to which the Plaintiff had been subjected during the period of her wrongful imprisonment it was fair and proper. However, like my Lord, I think the learned Judge's direction on exemplary damages was not correct, but it certainly did not have the effect contended for by Mr Marshall.

I see no grounds for saying that the Jury were confused as to what they were awarding damages for. In stating that they had not taken his direction on exemplary damages into account, that showed that they had not added anything into the £12,000 for their own disapprobation of the conduct of the Police — as the Learned Judge told them they might do, if they so wished.

Once that is out of the way, then it seems to me the summing-up was adequate. It would have been better if the learned Judge had pointed out, in terms, to the Jury, that the damages to be awarded were for compensating the Plaintiff for the loss of her liberty and the damage to her reputation flowing from it.