England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(MR JUSTICE HARRISON)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Wednesday, 31st October 2001

Wednesday, 31st October 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE RIX: This is an application for permission to appeal from Harrison J's judgment and order of 15th June 2001, whereby he refused Mr Smyth permission to challenge a decision of the Police Complaints Authority, dated 16th October 2000, by means of judicial review.
2. The decision arose out of a complaint made by Mr Smyth directly to the Authority by his letter of 24th May 2000. In that letter he complained of the way he had been treated by the police on that day when he had been arrested at the Benefits Agency at Lowestoft. The letter makes complaint of no other occasion.
3. His complaint essentially was that he was made fun of, personal remarks were addressed to him, he was arrested without being told why, he was handcuffed and put across the back seat of police car, in being treated so his shoulder had been hurt but he was not given any medical attention, and he was doing nothing wrong. He subsequently made a witness statement on 8th June 2000 in which he developed on this complaint, but also introduced it by reference to a previous occasion in April 2000 as to which he alleged that he had been mistreated on that occasion as well.
4. In its decision letter the Authority, in the light of that witness statement, reviewed both the earlier occasion in April 2000 and the occasion of 24th May of which official complaint had been made. The decision letter made it plain that the writer of the letter, Caroline Mitchell, a member of the Authority, had examined all relevant police records relating to the investigation which had been carried out into the complaint. It dealt with each of the matters of complaint on both occasions and concluded that there was no basis for them, no independent evidence to support them, no medical evidence to support any allegation either of assault or of any medical harm, and that on the balance of probabilities it had not been shown that the behaviour of any officer had fallen below the standards set out in the police code of conduct. The letter concluded as follows:

"We decide this after carefully weighing up all the evidence and considering whether it is more likely than not that the allegations made against the officer are true. In the case of your complaint I am not satisfied that the evidence supports your account of events rather than the officers."

5. That letter makes it plain that the Authority member who made it had been directly concerned with the investigation.
6. The question arises as to what error of law has been at any rate arguably shown either in that decision letter or in the approach that Harrison J took when he concluded that there was no substance in Mr Smyth's application for judicial review and that he had had a fair investigation which had properly addressed his complaints, and that the Authority's decision was not simply one of rubber stamping. All such submissions to the contrary the judge rejected, concluding that the matter had been properly investigated by the Authority, that it properly exercised the powers given to it by statute, and that he could find no arguable error of law in the decision that it made.
7. On this occasion Mr Smyth has sought to submit that the error of law is that the Authority had not considered a separate letter of complaint which he had written to the Authority on 28th July 2000 relating to an entirely separate incident when he was again arrested by the police on 18th July.
8. All of that, however (the incident of 18th July and the separate complaint of 28th July), postdates the incident of 24th May and the complaint of 24th May which is the subject matter of this application. The letter of 28th July does not ask the Authority to take this new incident and this new complaint into account in dealing with his complaint of 24th May. The letter does not refer back to the incident of 24th May or the complaint of that date, or seek to link the incidents in any way.
9. I can find no error of law in the Authority in failing to take account of the letter of 28th July and thus making no mention of it in its decision letter.
10. Mr Smyth also submits that there is an error of law in that the Authority did not exercise its power to supervise the investigation, a power which it has, he submits, under section 72(1)(c) of the Police Act 1996. The basis of his submission that the Authority did not supervise the complaint is a document put before the court on behalf of the Authority itself to the effect that the investigation was not referred to it or supervised by it under any of the sections of the 1996 Act, including section 72. Be that as it may, the decision letter makes it clear that the Authority, to whom the complaint had been directly made by Mr Smyth, had taken personal and active steps to satisfy itself by examining all relevant police records as to whether the evidence supported Mr Smyth's account, and whether it supported an upholding of the complaint, but concluded that it did not.
11. In these circumstances, I can find no arguable error of law either by reference to any disregard of Mr Smyth's letter of 28th July 2000, or by reference to any power under the Police Act. I can see no real prospect of success upon an appeal, nor any other compelling reason why permission to appeal should be granted.
12. For those reasons I reject this application.
(Application refused; no order for costs).