The plaintiff had been awarded damages for false imprisonment by the jury on the basis that his otherwise lawful detention at a police station had been made unlawful because it was unreasonable in the circumstances to keep him in a police cell.
Held: The defendant’s appeal succeeded.
Ackner LJ said: ‘We agree with the views expressed by the Divisional Court that it must be possible to conceive of hypothetical cases in which the conditions of detention are so intolerable as to render the detention unlawful and thereby provide a remedy to the prisoner in damages for false imprisonment. A person lawfully detained in a prison cell would, in our judgment, cease to be so lawfully detained if the conditions in that cell were such as to be seriously prejudicial to his health if he continued to occupy it, eg, because it became and remained seriously flooded, or contained a fractured gas pipe allowing gas to escape into the cell. We do not therefore accept as an absolute proposition that if detention is initially lawful, it can never become unlawful by reason of changes in the conditions of imprisonment.’
Judges:
Ackner LJ
Citations:
[1990] 3 WLR 481
Citing:
Cited – Williams v Home Office (No 2) 1981
Tudor-Evans J said: ‘In my judgment, the sentence of the court and the provisions of section 12(1) always afford a defence to an action of false imprisonment. The sentence justifies the fact of imprisonment and the subsection justifies the . .
Cited – Regina v Board of Visitors of Gartree Prison, Ex parte Sears 14-Mar-1985
A prisoner sought damages in respect of cellular confinement and loss of privileges.
Held: Mann J. said: ‘If a person is imprisoned in a place where he is lawfully so imprisoned, then it does not seem to me that a variation in conditions of . .
Cited by:
Erroneous – Regina v Deputy Governor of Parkhurst Prison, Ex parte Hague, Weldon v Home Office HL 24-Jul-1991
The prisoner challenged the decision to place him in segregation under Prison Rule 43. Under rule 43(1) the initial power to segregate was given to ‘the governor’. The case arose from the fact that the governor of one prison had purported to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Torts – Other, Police
Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.271097