Leeds United Football Club v West Yorkshire Police

Police services requested for maintaining law and order are chargeable as special police services only when they fall outside the police's ordinary public duty. The essential inquiry is whether the services discharge the duty to maintain law and order and protect life and property, or constitute additional services supplied at the request of a person.

Providing law and order policing on public land will ordinarily discharge the public duty. The event's commercial origin, demands on police resources and benefit to its organiser do not determine the classification. By contrast, policing requested on private land will usually be chargeable, unless the police attend to deal with actual or imminent violence.

West Yorkshire Police supplied policing before and after football matches inside Leeds United's stadium, on adjoining land controlled by the club, and in an extended footprint comprising public streets, car parks and open spaces. The club accepted that policing in the first two areas was chargeable, but disputed liability for the extended footprint.

Eady J held that the extended-footprint services discharged the police's ordinary public duty and were not special police services under Police Act 1996, section 25(1). The Chief Constable appealed. The central issue was whether planned public-order and crowd-control policing on public land beyond premises owned or controlled by the club could be chargeable as special police services.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. The law and order services supplied in the extended footprint were performed in discharge of the police's public duty to maintain law and order and protect life and property. They were not special police services chargeable to the club under section 25(1) of the Police Act 1996.

2. The governing distinction in Glasbrook Brothers Ltd v Glamorgan County Council [1925] AC 270 remains good law. Police cannot charge for steps which they consider necessary to prevent crime, keep the peace, or protect life and property. They may charge for other services which they choose to provide at a person's request.

3. The four considerations identified in Harris v Sheffield United Football Club Ltd [1988] 1 QB 77 are pointers of varying utility, rather than substitutes for the governing inquiry. The location of the services is especially important. Police are ordinarily obliged to maintain law and order in public places, whereas requested policing on private land will prima facie amount to special police services.

4. Whether violence has occurred or is immediately imminent is closely connected with location. Attendance on private premises to deal with actual or imminent violence may discharge the public duty. Attendance there merely against the possibility of violence will generally be special police services. On public land, both preventive policing and an emergency response will ordinarily fall within the public duty.

5. Professional football matches attended by thousands are essentially public events. The fact that their policing places exceptional demands on police resources carries little weight. Public duties may require substantial resources and the deployment of off-duty officers.

6. The identity of the principal beneficiary may assist the analysis, but supplies neither a conclusive nor generally decisive test. The whole community benefits from the prevention and detection of crime. Nor does policing become chargeable merely because a profitable event created the occasion for it: the law contains no “but for” test.

7. The spectators retained their status as members of the public and were entitled to police protection while approaching and leaving the stadium. The extended-footprint policing was not different in principle from law and order policing in any other public place. Moore-Bick and McCombe LJJ agreed with the Master of the Rolls.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Dismissed the Chief Constable's appeal and affirmed that policing in the extended footprint was not chargeable as special police services: [2013] EWCA Civ 115.
2. High Court, Queen's Bench Division: Eady J held that the services supplied on public land beyond the premises owned or controlled by the club discharged the police's ordinary public duty and were not special police services. No citation for that decision is stated in the judgment.