Corkindale v Police Medical Appeal Board & Anor

For the purposes of permanent disablement under regulation A12 of the Police Pensions Regulations 1997, “the force” ordinarily means the particular local police force in which the officer serves, rather than the police service as a whole.

An officer may therefore be permanently disabled where an infirmity prevents performance of ordinary duties in that force, even if the officer could perform those duties in another force. Alternatively, where the police service generally operates in circumstances involving a particular risk, inability to work safely in those circumstances may prevent performance of ordinary duties across the service.

The claimant, a serving police constable, had suffered severe reactions to CS spray and had been confined to broadly office-based duties. The Police Medical Appeal Board accepted that she was permanently unable to perform the ordinary duties of an officer in West Yorkshire Police, but concluded that she was not permanently disabled under regulation A12 because she could work in a force that did not use CS spray.

The Board relied on R. (Sussex Police Authority) v Beck, [2003] EWHC 1361 (Admin). The claimant sought judicial review, challenging the construction of regulation A12 and, alternatively, relying on the prevalence of CS spray in police forces.

1. Claim allowed. The decision of the Police Medical Appeal Board dated 3 May 2005 was quashed. The claimant was declared permanently disabled within regulation A12 of the Police Pensions Regulations 1997.
2. The phrase “the force” in regulation A12(2) naturally referred to the particular local police force in which the officer served. England and Wales had a number of separate police forces, maintained under the Police Act 1996, and that constitutional structure supported the construction adopted.
3. The statutory context reinforced that conclusion. The definitions in the Police Pensions Act 1976, the glossary in the Regulations, and the distinction between references to a particular force and references to service did not conclusively determine the issue, but strongly supported a local-force meaning.
4. The reasoning in R. (Sussex Police Authority) v Beck, [2003] EWHC 1361 (Admin), pointing to a police service-wide construction was respectfully rejected. The use of “the force” was not a deliberate contrast with “a police force”; it was grammatically apt to identify the particular force concerned.
5. Alternatively, even on a police-service-wide construction, the claimant was unable to perform ordinary duties. The accepted evidence showed that 37 of 43 forces used CS spray at the material date, while the remainder used PAVA. Working in circumstances where CS spray was liable to be used therefore formed part of the ordinary duties of an officer in the police service generally. The information could be treated as an objectively verifiable established fact under E v Home Secretary, [2004] QB 1044.
6. The Board was ordered to pay the claimant’s costs on the standard basis unless it submitted, within 28 days, written grounds for a different order.

This was a first-instance judicial review claim. Permission had been granted by Collins J. The claimant challenged the Police Medical Appeal Board’s decision dated 3 May 2005.