Orange v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police

A custodian owes a prisoner a general duty to take reasonable care for the prisoner’s health and safety. The increased incidence of suicide in custody requires reasonable steps to identify whether an individual presents a suicide risk.

The more unusual duty to take reasonable care to prevent deliberate suicide arises only where the custodian knows, or ought to know, that the individual prisoner presents such a risk. Custodians need not treat every prisoner as suicidal or adopt precautions unrelated to any identified risk. Intoxication alone does not establish foreseeability without evidence that the prisoner’s condition or behaviour indicates an enhanced risk.

A man arrested for being drunk and disorderly hanged himself with his belt while detained in a police cell. His widow claimed under the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. She alleged negligence in allowing him to retain his belt, monitoring him inadequately and placing him in a cell containing a suspension point.

The Leeds County Court dismissed the claims. The judge found that neither the deceased’s history nor his behaviour gave the officers reason to regard him as a suicide risk. The widow appealed, contending principally that the police owed every prisoner a duty to take precautions against suicide because people in custody constitute a generally enhanced-risk group.

The central issue was whether a duty to prevent deliberate suicide depended upon actual or constructive knowledge of a suicide risk in the individual prisoner.

1. Appeal dismissed. Lord Justice Latham, delivering the court’s judgment, held that the police were not negligent. The custody officers had taken reasonable steps to assess the deceased and had no reason to identify him as a suicide risk.

2. A custodian owes every person in custody a duty to take reasonable care for that person’s health and safety. Because suicide is more prevalent among prisoners than in the community, that general duty includes an obligation to take reasonable steps to identify whether an individual prisoner presents a suicide risk.

3. The distinct and unusual duty to take reasonable care to prevent a prisoner from deliberately taking his own life arises only when the custodian knows, or ought to know, that the individual presents such a risk. Although custody generally increases the incidence of suicide, suicide remains capable of being unforeseen and unforeseeable in an individual case. It would not be fair, just and reasonable to require police or prison authorities to treat every prisoner as suicidal. Such a rule would impose unacceptable controls on custodians and prisoners and could require minimum precautions having no relevance to the particular case.

4. The House of Lords’ reasoning in Reeves v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2000] 1 AC 360 did not establish a duty towards all prisoners. The general danger of suicide in custody and the custodian’s control explained why a duty to prevent self-harm could arise. The speeches, read in context, confined that duty to a prisoner whose individual risk was known or ought to have been known.

5. The approach under article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights in Keenan v United Kingdom, App No 27229/95, was consistent with that conclusion. It asked whether the authorities knew or ought to have known of a real and immediate risk to the individual and, if so, whether they took the reasonable preventive measures available to them.

6. Intoxication did not by itself establish an enhanced and foreseeable suicide risk. The evidence did not show that people arrested for being drunk and disorderly formed such a risk category. The trial judge was entitled to prefer an individual assessment and to find that the officers neither knew nor ought to have known of a suicide risk.

7. Because the special duty did not arise, permitting the deceased to retain his belt was not negligent. Although the cell gate failed to comply with Home Office recommendations intended to minimise opportunities for self-injury, placing him in that cell was not a breach of a duty owed to him. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused.

• Court of Appeal: Dismissed the widow’s appeal and refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords.
• Leeds County Court: Her Honour Judge Finnerty dismissed the claims because the officers had no reason to regard the deceased as a suicide risk and therefore owed no duty to prevent his deliberate suicide.