Conaghan, R (On the Application Of) v Independent Police Complaints Commission

When reviewing an appeal concerning a police-complaint investigation, the Independent Police Complaints Commission must consider all material considerations, but it is responsible for deciding the weight to give each consideration. A consideration is material if, had it been taken into account, it might have led to a different conclusion. Judicial review does not permit the court to substitute its own assessment of the evidence or require the Commission to conduct its own further investigation where the relevant material has been considered. The Commission’s conclusion will stand where it was fairly and reasonably open to it and was reached without material error or omission.

The claimant sought judicial review of the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s decision of 27 November 2012 concerning his complaint about his arrest on 30 March 2011. The complaint investigation had concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect him of offences involving indecent images. The Commission rejected the challenges concerning the arrest and the alleged conduct of the investigating officer, although it accepted that parts of the police investigation report lacked clarity.

Permission was granted on the ground that the Commission might have failed to take account of material considerations. The central issue was whether its assessment of the evidence concerning the six matters relied on for the arrest contained a material error or omission.

1. Judicial review principles. The relevant test for failure to take account of material considerations was whether an omitted consideration might, if taken into account, have caused the decision-maker to reach a different conclusion. The weight given to a relevant consideration was for the decision-maker, subject only to rationality: R v Parliamentary Commissioners for Administration ex parte Balchin [1998] 1 PLR 1, by reference to Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council v Secretary of State for the Environment (1990) 61 P&CR 343.
2. Statutory framework. The Commission was reviewing the investigation under paragraph 25 of Schedule 3 to the Police Reform Act 2002. Its task was to determine whether the investigation findings needed reconsideration. If so, it could review the findings without an immediate further investigation or direct that the complaint be reinvestigated. The framework was helpfully summarised in Muldoon v Independent Police Complaints Commission [2009] EWHC 3633 (Admin).
3. Application. The Commission had considered the claimant’s objections concerning the frequency of his contact with police, his father’s cognitive capacity, access to the computer, the alleged request for monitoring software, and his computer knowledge. It was not required to carry out its own inquiries into disputed telephone records. The factual error concerning whether the claimant himself had insisted that the computer belonged to his mother was immaterial, because the evidence that unlawful images were found on the computer and that the father had little or no unsupervised access to it still raised a prima facie suspicion concerning the claimant or his mother.
4. The reasons for the arrest were set out in the police communications of 29 March 2011. There was no basis for alleging bad faith, and no material error or omission in the Commission’s assessment. The Commission reached a conclusion fairly and reasonably open to it and had regard to all material considerations. The claim was dismissed.
5. The defendant was awarded costs of £3,155, payable within 28 days.