Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co (Europe) Ltd & Anor v The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime

For compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, the assembly must constitute riot under the Public Order Act 1986 and must also be riotously and tumultuously assembled. This requires a substantial group acting in an agitated, excited or volatile manner, with a public or palpable threat to which the police could notionally have responded. Wanton violence towards property is a material indicator. The statutory scheme provides compensation for physical damage to premises or property in them. It does not provide consequential losses, such as loss of profit or loss of rent, as free-standing heads of claim.

The claimants were insurers and owners seeking compensation from the statutory body responsible for the Metropolitan Police after the Sony distribution warehouse at Enfield was attacked, looted and destroyed by fire during the August 2011 riots.

Christopher Clarke J ordered trial of preliminary issues concerning whether the losses arose from persons riotously and tumultuously assembled under section 2(1) of the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, and whether consequential or future losses were recoverable. The future-loss issue was not pursued as a preliminary issue. The central questions were whether the statutory threshold was met and whether the Act covered consequential losses.

1. First preliminary issue. The warehouse attack satisfied the statutory offence of riot under section 1 of the Public Order Act 1986. More than twelve persons used or threatened unlawful violence for a common purpose, and their conduct would have caused a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for personal safety. Violence towards property was sufficient, and the riot could occur in private.
2. The group was also riotously and tumultuously assembled. The relevant factors were its substantial size, its agitated and volatile conduct, the palpable public threat to which the police could notionally have responded, and the wanton destruction of property. The group had gathered openly for a substantial period, moved towards the warehouse without stealth, broke in by force, looted it and deliberately used petrol bombs. The short duration of the attack did not prevent the statutory threshold being met.
3. The approach in Dwyer and Edmonds was applied, but those cases concerned small, essentially professional robberies in which damage was incidental to theft. This case was closer to Pitchers and Yarl’s Wood, involving wanton damage and an animus towards property.
4. Second preliminary issue. The Act creates a self-contained statutory compensation scheme, analogous to statutory insurance rather than ordinary tort damages. On its proper construction, particularly reading the preamble, sections 2 and 7 together, compensation is confined to physical damage to the relevant premises or property. Consequential loss of profit and loss of rent are not recoverable as free-standing claims.
5. The 1886 Regulations could assist construction if the Act were ambiguous because they were roughly contemporaneous. The later 1894 and 1921 Regulations could not establish Parliament’s intention. The preliminary issues were answered accordingly.