The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, R (on the application of) v The Independent Police Complaints Commission & Anor

An investigation into a police complaint is part of a holistic, continuing statutory process. While the complaints-handling function remains in progress, an intermediate decision not to recommend disciplinary proceedings is not necessarily final or irrevocable.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission may review such a decision and re-open the investigation for good cause. The absence of an express power in Schedule 3 to the Police Reform Act 2002 does not require each intermediate stage to be treated as conclusively completed. Re-opening remains subject to judicial review and, in practical terms, requires a compelling reason.

Following a complaint of strangulation and racial abuse during police detention, the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigated and concluded that a constable had no case to answer on the strangulation allegation. The Metropolitan Police Service agreed, and the Commission initially made no disciplinary recommendation on that allegation.

A different IPCC commissioner later became concerned about the investigation and decided to re-open it. The Commissioner of Police sought judicial review, contending that the IPCC was functus officio. The Divisional Court dismissed that claim and declared that the investigation could lawfully be re-opened. It separately quashed the original findings on the strangulation allegation; that order was not appealed.

The central issue on appeal was whether the earlier decision not to recommend or direct disciplinary action was irrevocable under the Police Reform Act 2002.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the declaration that the IPCC was lawfully entitled, in the circumstances, to re-open the investigation. It was also entitled to review its earlier determination under paragraph 23(8)(b) of Schedule 3 to the Police Reform Act 2002 not to recommend disciplinary proceedings.

2. The IPCC’s statutory function was the handling of the complaint as a whole. That function remained in progress when the decision not to recommend proceedings on the strangulation allegation was made. The statutory process could not properly be divided into self-contained stages or separate allegations against individual officers, each becoming conclusively and irrevocably determined as soon as an intermediate decision was taken.

3. Schedule 3 establishes a holistic regime for handling police complaints, conduct matters, and death or serious injury matters from beginning to end. It gives the IPCC ultimate control over the progress of an investigation and any resulting disciplinary or criminal proceedings. Intermediate steps must therefore be understood in light of the statutory objectives of efficient and effective complaint handling and the maintenance of public confidence.

4. Section 10(6) did not, by itself, imply a free-standing power to re-open an investigation. Nevertheless, the presence of express review powers elsewhere in Schedule 3 did not establish that every other intermediate decision was irrevocable. That interpretation would conflict with the nature of the IPCC’s continuing statutory functions and could leave it bound by a questionable decision while the complaint remained unresolved.

5. The Court confined its conclusion to the circumstances before it. It did not determine when the IPCC finally becomes functus officio or exhaustively define when re-opening is permissible. A decision to re-open is subject to the court’s supervisory jurisdiction and, in practical terms, requires a compelling reason. There was an overwhelming basis for re-opening in this case.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In [2015] EWCA Civ 1248, unanimously dismissed the Commissioner’s appeal and upheld the declaration that the IPCC could lawfully re-open the investigation.
• High Court, Divisional Court (Administrative Court): Dismissed the Commissioner’s judicial review claim and declared that the IPCC was entitled to re-open the investigation. It also quashed the original findings concerning the strangulation allegation; that part of its order was not appealed.