Cheema & Ors v Nottingham and Newark Magistrates Court & Anor

A search warrant must identify, so far as practicable, the articles to be sought. It must define the limits of the search by reference to its own terms and cannot delegate the assessment of relevance to the executing officer. Non-compliance with the safeguards in section 15 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 makes the entry, search and seizure unlawful, but does not itself invalidate the warrant. A warrant is otherwise valid until quashed. An all-premises warrant requires the magistrate to address the additional statutory conditions expressly. A pending application under section 59 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 does not make a judicial review academic where the court’s findings will inform the discretion to retain unlawfully seized property.

The claimants sought judicial review of a search warrant issued by a justice of the peace on HMRC’s information and of searches and seizures at four specified addresses. The warrant also contained an all-premises clause, although the application sought only a specified-premises warrant. HMRC conceded that the entries, searches and seizures were unlawful because the warrant failed to identify the offences in a general residual description of articles and issued a section 59 application seeking authority to retain the property.

The claim challenged both the warrant’s specificity under section 15 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the magistrate’s satisfaction of the access criteria under section 8, including the criteria for an all-premises warrant.

1. Judicial review was not academic. The court proceeded to determine all grounds because its findings about the nature and extent of the illegality were relevant to the Crown Court’s discretion on HMRC’s application under section 59 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. The Crown Court could not itself quash the warrant or declare the searches unlawful.
2. Specificity. Section 15(6)(b) requires the warrant to identify, so far as practicable, the articles to be sought. The warrant must be precise and intelligible from its own terms. The decision whether articles satisfy the statutory requirements cannot be left to the officer executing the warrant. The phrase “any other items which appear relevant to the offences under investigation” was defective because it failed both to identify the offences and to confine the officer’s judgment of relevance. Other challenged descriptions, including high-value items suspected to be proceeds of crime, companies, and documents without a date limit, were sufficiently confined in the circumstances.
3. Section 8 criteria. The challenge based on special procedure material was speculative and failed. However, the information did not connect two of the premises with the relevant claimants. There was therefore no proper basis for believing that relevant evidence would be found there, and the warrant was unlawfully granted on that ground.
4. All-premises provision. The magistrate had not addressed the additional conditions in section 8(1B). The clause resulted from an error in the draft warrant and was not used, but the warrant was nevertheless invalid in the form issued.
5. The court granted a declaration that the entries, searches and seizures were unlawful and quashed the warrant. It made no immediate order for return of the originals or copies because the section 59 application remained pending. Any damages claim was to await that application.