Watson v Chief Constable of Cleveland Police

A trial court may control evidence and limit cross-examination about previous convictions. The discretion extends to excluding otherwise admissible material where it is irrelevant, marginal, or inconsistent with a fair and expeditious trial. Convictions other than for dishonesty may affect credit, but they cannot be used merely to suggest a propensity for violence.

An appellate court will not interfere with the exercise of that discretion unless any error made the decision unjust. In assessing exemplary damages for police misconduct, the relationship between compensatory, aggravated and exemplary awards is a useful proportionality check. A substantially higher exemplary award requires an exceptional feature and adequate guidance to the jury.

The claimant alleged that police officers assaulted him in a police cell and that the subsequent prosecution of him for assaulting them was malicious. A jury in the Middlesbrough County Court, before His Honour Judge Taylor, awarded total damages of £21,500, including £16,000 exemplary damages.

The Chief Constable appealed. The first ground challenged the restriction of cross-examination about the claimant’s previous convictions. The second challenged the jury direction and amount awarded for exemplary damages. The central issues were whether the exclusion of convictions rendered the trial unjust and whether the exemplary award was excessive or unsafe.

1. Appeal allowed in part. Sir Murray Stuart-Smith LJ, with whom Chadwick LJ agreed, upheld the verdict on liability. The Court reduced exemplary damages from £16,000 to £9,000. The total award was therefore reduced from £21,500 to £14,500.

2. The trial judge had a discretion under Civil Procedure Rules Part 32.1 to limit cross-examination and exclude otherwise admissible evidence. Cross-examination about convictions is directed to credit, not propensity. Although convictions other than dishonesty may bear on credit, the appellant had principally relied on the excluded convictions as showing a tendency to violence. The judge was entitled to exclude them, particularly because the jury had already heard of 31 dishonesty convictions and the further convictions added little.

3. Even if that discretion had been exercised wrongly, the Court was not persuaded under Civil Procedure Rules Part 52.11 that the result was unjust because of a serious procedural irregularity. It was highly unlikely that knowledge of the additional convictions would have changed the jury’s assessment of credibility.

4. The judge had not given the jury the useful proportionality check identified in Thompson and Hsu, namely that, save where basic damages are modest, total basic, aggravated and exemplary damages will unusually exceed three times basic damages. The award was four times the basic compensatory damages, exceeded the judge’s exemplary range, and produced a total award inconsistent with the jury’s low awards under the compensatory and aggravated heads.

5. The involvement of an inspector in the alleged cover-up could justify an award above the ordinary check, but not £16,000 on these facts. Chadwick LJ added that the absence of the Thompson guidance made the award unsafe; had the guidance been given, he would not have disturbed it.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the appeal only as to quantum and reduced the total award to £14,500: [2001] EWCA Civ 1547 .

• Middlesbrough County Court: A jury before His Honour Judge Taylor awarded the claimant £21,500 on 17 December 2000.