Police investigating crime obtained a warrant to search a solicitor’s offices for details of their clients. The solicitors appealed.
Held: The details required, namely dates of contacts with a certain telephone number were not legally privileged: ‘the name and telephone number of the caller were taken down as a formality ‘to create the channel through which advice may later flow’. The judge’s discretion had been properly exercised.
Fulford J (as he then was) in the Divisional Court in R (Miller Gardner) v Minshull Street Crown Court at [19] and he thereafter continued: ‘As Lord Bingham stated during the course of his judgment, it is necessary to consider the function and nature of the documents. As a result although documents may be located at a solicitor’s office, they do not attract legal professional privilege for that reason alone.
That decision provides strong support for the proposition that the provision of an individual’s name, address and contact number cannot, without more, be regarded as being made in connection with legal advice. It records nothing which passes between the solicitor and client in relation to the obtaining of or giving of legal advice. Taking down the name and telephone number is a formality that occurs before the legal advice is sought or given. As my Lord observed during argument, providing these details does no more than create the channel through which advice may later flow: see in this regard the case of Studdy v Sanders and others (1823) 2 D and R 347.
It follows, in my judgment, that the identity of the person contacting the solicitor is not information subject to legal professional privilege and the telephone numbers of the brothers, equally, are not covered by this protection; neither are the dates when one or either of those men phoned the office. Moreover, the record of appointments in the office diary and attendance notes, in so far as they merely record who was speaking to the solicitor and the number they were calling from, fall within the same category. Other details contained within the attendance notes may well be covered by legal professional privilege depending on what, if anything, was discussed.’
Judges:
Fulford J, Rose LJ VP CACD
Citations:
[2002] EWHC 3077 (Admin)
Links:
Statutes:
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 Sch1, European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 6 8
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Central Criminal Court ex parte Francis and Francis HL 1989
The police had obtained an ex parte order for the production of files from a firm of solicitors relating to financial transactions of one of their clients. The police believed that the client had been provided with money to purchase property by an . .
Cited – Regina v Manchester Crown Court ex parte Rogers (Legal Professional Privilege) Admn 2-Feb-1999
The police had sought disclosure from the applicant’s solicitors of records of the time at which the applicant arrived at the solicitors’ premises on a particular date and like documents.
Held: Such records are not privileged because they did . .
Cited – Regina v Cox and Railton 1884
(Court for Crown Cases Reserved) The defendants were charged with conspiracy to defraud a judgment creditor of the fruits of a judgment by dishonestly backdating a dissolution of their partnership to a date prior to a bill of sale given by Railton . .
Cited – Regina v Crown Court ex parte Baines and Baines 1988
The court considered special procedure material arising out of the Brinks-Mat robbery.
Held: The records of the financing of a transaction for the purchase of a property were not to be subject to legal professional privilege under section 10 . .
Cited – Studdy v Sanders and others 1823
Legal professional privilege. . .
Cited – Regina v Leeds Crown Court ex parte Switalski 1991
It is preferable, in an ordinary case, for an application for a search warrant in a solicitor’s office to be made on notice. However, if a solicitor under investigation were to have knowledge of what was contemplated the material sought might . .
Cited – Regina v Maidstone Crown Court ex parte Waitt QBD 1988
The solicitor applicant challenged the grant of a search order under section 9.
Held: The order was quashed. The court underlined the need for judges to be scrupulous in discharging their responsibilities so as to ensure that use of the . .
Cited by:
Cited – SRJ v Person(s) Unknown (Author and Commenters of Internet Blogs) QBD 10-Jul-2014
The claimant sought an order for the disclosure by his solicitor of the identity of the author of an internet blog publishing critical material which, the claimant said, was its confidential information. The defendant’s solicitor had failed to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Legal Professions, Police
Updated: 08 June 2022; Ref: scu.189108
