The appellants challenged the legality under European law of orders under the Act restricting their freedom of movement, after suspicion of involvement in football violence.
Held: Although the proceedings under which orders were made were civil, the standard of proof required was virtually that of a criminal court. Public policy could be used to justify an infringement of the citizens’ rights under European Law. A football banning order should only be imposed where there were strong grounds for concluding that the individual subject to the order had a propensity for taking part in football hooliganism. Noting the serious consequences: ‘This should lead the Justices to apply an exacting standard of proof that will, in practice, be hard to distinguish from the criminal standard.’
Lord Phillips MR referred to the kind of intelligence information which was being collected, stating: ‘The tactics of the police have had to respond to this developing phenomenon. There is a football intelligence system co-ordinated by NCIS. Each club has a Football Intelligence Officer, who is known to the prominents as they are known to him. In relation to each match … information is collected by the police ‘spotters’ who watch the prominents. The information is collated in an information/intelligence report. The profiles are prepared in reliance on the contents of such reports, and consist in short notes, each giving an outline description of the particular prominent’s involvement in actual or threatened trouble in relation to any given match.’
Judges:
Phillips of Worth Matravers, Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Judge and Lord Justice Carnwath
Citations:
Times 10-Apr-2002, Gazette 23-May-2002, [2002] EWCA Civ 351, [2002] QB 1213, [2002] 3 WLR 289, [2002] 2 All ER 985
Links:
Statutes:
Football Spectators Act 1989 14B, Football (Disorder) Act 2000
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – B v Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary QBD 5-Apr-2000
The defendant appealed the making of a sex offender order under 1998 Act. The justices had found that the defendant was a sex offender within section 2(1)(a) and that he had acted on a number of occasions in a way which brought him within section . .
Cited – Regina (McCann and Others) v Manchester Crown Court CA 9-Mar-2001
Proceedings applying for an anti-social behaviour order, were properly civil proceedings, with civil standards of evidence, and the Human Rights Act provisions relating to criminal proceedings, were not applicable either. The section included acts . .
Appeal from – Gough and Another v Chief Constable of Derbyshire; Regina (Miller) v Leeds Magistrates’ Court; Lilley v Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 13-Jul-2001
Challenges were made to the powers banning the free movement of those convicted of offences of violence. Orders had been made banning the applicants from attending football matches, and requiring attendance at police stations at times of matches . .
Cited by:
Distinguished – Regina (DJ) v Mental Health Review Tribunal; Regina (AN) v Mental Health Review Tribunal (Northern Region) Admn 11-Apr-2005
Each applicant sought judicial review of the refusal of the tribunal to authorise their release from detention under the 1983 Act, saying that the Tribunal had accepted evidence to a lower standard of proof.
Held: Neither the criminal standard . .
Cited – Clingham (formerly C (a minor)) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; Regina v Crown Court at Manchester Ex parte McCann and Others HL 17-Oct-2002
The applicants had been made subject of anti-social behaviour orders. They challenged the basis upon which the orders had been made.
Held: The orders had no identifiable consequences which would make the process a criminal one. Civil standards . .
Cited – Campbell v Hamlet (as executrix of Simon Alexander) PC 25-Apr-2005
(Trinidad and Tobago) The appellant was an attorney. A complaint was made that he had been given money to buy land, but neither had the land been conveyed nor the money returned. The complaint began in 1988, but final speeches were not heard until . .
Cited – In re D; Doherty, Re (Northern Ireland); Life Sentence Review Commissioners v D HL 11-Jun-2008
The Sentence Review Commissioners had decided not to order the release of the prisoner, who was serving a life sentence. He had been released on licence from a life sentence and then committed further serious sexual offences against under-age girls . .
Cited – Newman v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis Admn 25-Mar-2009
The defendant appealed against the admission of evidence on the respondent’s application for a football bannng order. A witness statement was based on intelligence reports which meant that the witness could not be effectively examined by he defence. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
European, Crime
Updated: 05 June 2022; Ref: scu.168533