Global Cash & Carry Ltd, R (on the application of) v Birmingham Magistrates' Court & Ors

A search warrant is unlawful where the occupier is not supplied with a complete copy identifying the premises to be searched, and the statutory form and rationale have both been disregarded. In such circumstances, relief may extend beyond a declaration to quashing the warrant. A magistrates’ court must apply the statutory test under Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, including whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that an indictable offence has been committed. The reviewing court should not reconstruct the evidence to determine whether a warrant might have been issued lawfully under the correct test. Where the magistrates appear to have applied a fundamentally different test, quashing is the proper remedy.

Global Cash & Carry Limited sought judicial review of a warrant issued by Birmingham Magistrates’ Court under section 8 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The warrant authorised searches of specified premises for evidence relating to alleged counterfeit-goods and controlled-drug offences.

When the warrant was executed, the company’s director was given a copy without the schedule identifying the premises. The magistrates’ subsequent summary also stated that the justice had been satisfied that an indictable offence was being investigated, rather than that there were reasonable grounds to believe that one had been committed. The issues were whether those matters rendered the warrant unlawful and what relief should follow.

1. Outcome. The warrant was quashed. The question of damages was remitted to the Queen’s Bench Division. The claimant was awarded its costs and an interim payment of £7,500 was ordered.
2. Incomplete copy of warrant. Section 16(5) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 required the occupier to be supplied with the warrant. The copy supplied did not include the schedule identifying the premises. The evidence did not show that a complete copy had been shown before the search began. Following R(Redknapp and Another) v Commissioner of the City of London Police and Another [2008] EWHC 1177 (Admin) and R(Bhatti and Others) v Croydon Magistrates’ Court and Others [2010] EWHC 522 (Admin), there had been non-compliance with section 15. That failure rendered the warrant unlawful.
3. Relief. The case was distinguishable from R(Glenn & Co (Essex) Ltd and Others) v Her Majesty’s Commissioners for Revenue and Customs and Another [2011] EWHC 2998 (Admin), where a valid warrant had been produced and the occupier knew that it referred to the relevant address. Here, neither the form nor the rationale of section 15 had been respected, so quashing was appropriate rather than a declaration alone.
4. Statutory test. Section 8 required the justice to be satisfied that there were reasonable grounds for believing that an indictable offence had been committed. The magistrates’ summary appeared to adopt the materially different test that an offence was merely being investigated. The reviewing court would not inspect other material to decide whether the warrant could have been justified under the correct test. Applying a fundamentally different statutory test required the warrant to be quashed.
5. The court did not reach a concluded view on the separate argument concerning identification of the articles to be sought. On a provisional view, the offences and listed items appeared sufficiently particularised, applying the approach summarised in PCJ van der Pijl and JPM de Greef v Crown Court at Kingston [2012] EWHC 3745 (Admin).