O, R (on the application of) v The Independent Appeal Panel for London Borough of Tower Hamlets

An independent appeal panel deciding school-exclusion appeals has no general duty to alert represented parties to every procedural power that might affect the hearing. Whether fairness requires such a step depends on the circumstances, including whether the issue has been raised, whether the parties know of related appeals, and whether separate hearings risk inconsistent outcomes or material prejudice. Appeals concerning individual exclusions are ordinarily individual proceedings, although connected appeals may be combined or heard by the same panel where expedient. A challenge based on evidential weight fails where the panel considers the evidence as a whole and the remaining evidence independently supports its conclusion.

O, a pupil at a maintained school, was permanently excluded after a serious fight at the school gates in which a knife was found. The head teacher, the governors’ disciplinary committee and the Independent Appeal Panel upheld the exclusion. O sought judicial review of the panel’s decision.

He argued that his appeal should have been heard together with the related appeal of another pupil involved in the same incident, or that the panel should at least have raised that possibility. He also argued that the panel had failed to approach statements from pupils involved in the fight with sufficient caution. The central issues were procedural fairness and the proper evaluation of the evidence.

1. The application was dismissed. The IAP had no general legal duty to draw every potentially relevant procedural rule or practice to an appellant’s attention. Although it could appropriately invite representations about combining related appeals, the circumstances did not impose such a duty here. O and A’s representatives knew, or should have known, of the possibility of related appeals and neither party raised the issue. The case differed materially from R(S and B) v Independent Appeal Panel of Birmingham City Council, [2006] EWHC 2369 (Admin), where the issue had been expressly raised and separate panels created a serious risk of inconsistent outcomes.
2. The Regulations focused on the individual pupil and supported the general desirability of separate appeals, particularly where confidential material might be disclosed. Paragraph 12 of the Schedule nevertheless gave the IAP a discretion to combine appeals where the issues were the same or connected. Here the appeals were connected, but there was no compelling reason to combine them, and the same panel heard both. O suffered no procedural unfairness or material prejudice.
3. The IAP was not required expressly to direct itself about the weight of statements from pupils involved in the fight. The evidence had to be assessed as a whole. Even excluding the statements of the three pupils in the rival group, nine to eleven other pupils supported the conclusion that O had possessed the knife. That evidence outweighed O’s denial. The principles concerning caution in appropriate cases, illustrated by R v Makanjuola and R v Cheema, did not require relief on these facts.
4. Even if a procedural or evidential direction had been required, relief would have been refused because the outcome would have been unchanged. O was ordered to pay the defendant’s costs, subject to the legal-aid restriction; detailed assessment of his publicly funded costs was ordered, permission to appeal was refused, and the anonymity order was continued.

First-instance judicial review in the Administrative Court. Permission to appeal was refused, with the claimant directed to apply to the Court of Appeal if he wished to pursue an appeal.