Documents had been taken by the defendant’s officers in the course of an investigation into an alleged fraud. The plaintiff now sought their release for the use in civil proceedings so as to prevent his opponent misleading the court.
Held: The claim failed. Since the police were authorised to seize, retain and use the documents only for public purposes related to the investigation and prosecution of crime and the return of stolen property to the true owner, they were not entitled to disclose documents seized under the 1984 Act to a third party for use in civil proceedings to protect his legal rights.
The public interest in ensuring that the documents were used solely for the public purposes for which the power of seizure was conferred was inviolate and outweighed the public interest in ensuring that in the civil proceedings all relevant information should be available to the court.
Where the police or any other public authority used compulsory powers to obtain information and documents from a citizen, that information and those documents were received solely for those purposes and equity would impose on the public authority a duty not to disclose them to third parties except by order of the court.
Judges:
Browne-Wilkinson V-C J
Citations:
[1991] 1 All ER 845, [1991] 2 WLR 1118, (1990) 20 IPR 532
Statutes:
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Police, Intellectual Property
Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.448373