Pearce & Anor, R (on the application of) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis & Anor

The lawfulness of exercising a statutory search power depends on its true and dominant purpose. A lawful purpose may coexist with an unauthorised or collateral objective. The exercise remains lawful if the authorised purpose is dominant and the collateral objective is incidental rather than a pretext.

A decision to time the execution of a lawfully obtained warrant so as to obtain an additional crime-prevention benefit does not, without more, alter the purpose of the search. The court will consider whether officers actually searched within the warrant’s scope and pursued its specified objects.

The appellants sought judicial review of the Metropolitan Police’s execution, on 28 April 2011, of search warrants at several Camberwell Road squats. The warrants authorised searches for suspected stolen bicycles, bicycle equipment, electrical goods and computer equipment.

The searches were timed for the day before the Royal Wedding. The appellants alleged that their dominant purpose was preventive detention of persons thought likely to cause disorder at the wedding, rather than the recovery of stolen goods. The Divisional Court held the execution lawful: [2012] EWHC 1947 (Admin).

The appeal concerned only the lawfulness of executing the warrants. It did not challenge their issue, the arrests, or the subsequent detentions. The central question was whether Royal Wedding security, rather than the warranted search for stolen goods, was the officers’ dominant purpose.

1. Appeal dismissed. Maurice Kay LJ, with whom Patten and Fulford LJJ agreed, held that the Divisional Court was entitled to find that the dominant purpose of executing the warrants was the authorised search for stolen goods.

2. The applicable principle was the dominant-purpose test explained in R v Southwark Crown Court, ex parte Bowles, [1998] AC 641. Where a power is exercised for both an authorised and an unauthorised purpose, its exercise is lawful if the authorised purpose is the true and dominant one. A secondary or incidental collateral benefit does not invalidate the exercise; the contrary position is where the authorised purpose is merely a pretext.

3. The Royal Wedding concern plainly affected the timing of the searches. That did not establish that it was the dominant purpose of the searches themselves. The warrants had been lawfully obtained to search for specified stolen goods. Officers executed them by searching for those goods and seized substantial computer equipment within their scope. They did not search for material relating to disruption of the wedding.

4. Police may choose when to execute a valid warrant with an eye to a collateral operational advantage. That choice does not unlawfully inhibit their operational freedom where the search remains directed to the warrant’s authorised purpose. The seizure of flyers encountered during the search was also consistent with the power under section 19(3)(a) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984; officers need not adopt tunnel vision during an authorised search.

5. The claimants’ procedural choice to pursue judicial review without disclosure or cross-examination supported the Divisional Court’s reliance on the officers’ evidence. The appeal was, in substance, a perversity challenge and did not displace the factual finding on dominant purpose.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the appellants’ appeal and upheld the lawfulness of the execution of the search warrants: [2013] EWCA Civ 866.
• Divisional Court (Administrative Court): held that the execution of the search warrants was lawful: [2012] EWHC 1947 (Admin).