Graham v Chief Constable of West Mercia Constabulary & Ors

An arrest is lawful where the arresting officer personally suspects that an offence has been committed and that the arrested person committed it, and has objectively reasonable grounds for those suspicions. The same approach applies to the statutory necessity for arrest under Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. A bare instruction to arrest is insufficient. Harassment requires objectively unacceptable and oppressive conduct of sufficient gravity to justify criminal liability, comprising incidents sufficiently connected in type and context. Conduct pursued to prevent or detect crime falls within the statutory defence. An admitted unlawful search and seizure justified an award of £250, while the remaining claims failed.

The claimant, a self-employed interpreter, sued West Mercia Constabulary, Thames Valley Police and individual officers following her arrest for suspected harassment, detention, a complaint to her professional register, and an alleged unlawful search and seizure. She claimed for false arrest, false imprisonment, harassment, defamation, discrimination, trespass, theft and invasion of privacy.

The court considered the lawfulness of the arrest and detention, whether the claimant’s communications amounted to harassment, whether the complaint was defamatory, whether the search and seizure were lawful, and whether the remaining pleaded claims were established.

1. Arrest and detention. Under Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the arresting officer had to possess an actual suspicion that an offence had been committed and that the arrested person had committed it. The grounds for each suspicion had to be objectively reasonable. The officer also had to believe that arrest was necessary for one of the statutory reasons, with objectively reasonable grounds for that belief. Information supplied by another officer could provide the basis for the arresting officer’s own suspicion, but a bare request to arrest could not do so.
2. The arresting officer had received sufficient background information, formed the required suspicions, and reasonably believed that arrest was necessary to permit a prompt and effective investigation. The arrest and subsequent detention were therefore lawful.
3. Harassment. The claimant’s continuing communications after being told that her attentions were unwelcome amounted to a course of conduct which a reasonable person would have known constituted harassment. The conduct was unacceptable and oppressive and sufficiently grave to sustain criminal liability. The complaint to the professional register was materially true and was not defamatory. Action taken to investigate the claimant’s harassment of the officer was justified under section 1(3)(a) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
4. Other claims and remedy. The search of the claimant’s home and seizure of computers and mobile telephones were unlawful. The claimant was awarded £250 for the resulting invasion of privacy and injury to feelings. The discrimination claims were outside the court’s jurisdiction under the statutory provisions cited. The remaining claims were unsupported or insufficiently particularised.
5. All claims were dismissed except for the admitted unlawful search and seizure, for which judgment was given in the sum of £250.