The claimant appealed against rejection of his claim for damages for false imprisonment and infringement of his human rights. On his arrest for a different offence his passport was suspected to be counterfeit, and he was then held for an offence under the 2006 Act. The police secured expert evidence from the National Document Fraud Unit that the passport was genuine but delayed in providing this to the CPS and thence the court. All the while, the claimant remained in custody. Once the evidence was provided it was recognised that there were no grounds to continue to suspect the claimant. The prosecution was discontinued. But the claimant had spent time in custody after the evidence had emerged that showed that there were no grounds for continuing to suspect him of the commission of an offence.
Held: ‘a. It is implicit in article 5(1)(c) and article 5(3) of the Convention that investigating / prosecuting authorities are required to bring the relevant facts to the attention of the court as soon as possible, where they cease to have a reasonable suspicion that the detained person committed the offence in question (paragraph 20);
b. If delay on the part of the investigating / prosecuting authorities causes a court to fail to conduct proceedings with special diligence, then those who are responsible for the delay will be responsible for the breach of article 5(3) (paragraph 43);
c. If the investigating authorities fail to bring to the attention of the court material information of which the court should be made aware when reviewing a detention, this may have the effect of causing a decision by the court to refuse bail to be in breach of article 5(3) (paragraph 44).
Lord Dyson MT, Lewison, McCombe LJJ
[2015] EWCA Civ 80, [2015] 2 WLR 1563, [2015] WLR(D) 74, [2015] 4 All ER 735, [2015] QB 758
Bailii, WLRD
European Convention on Human Rights 5, Identity Cards Act 2006
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Motasim v Crown Prosecution Service and Others QBD 15-Aug-2017
The claimant had been arrested on suspicion of terrorism, from his innocent association with people later convicted of terrorism. The defendant discovered evidence which would undermine the case against him, but refuse to disclose it. Eventually, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Police, Human Rights, Torts – Other
Updated: 27 December 2021; Ref: scu.542485
