Hecke v Manchester & Salford Magistrates Court & Ors

An application for judicial review challenging search warrants must be brought promptly. The three-month outer limit does not displace the separate requirement of promptness. Delay requires cogent explanation, particularly where investigators may otherwise use seized material.

When applying ex parte for a warrant, the police must disclose known information which might affect the decision, including matters an opposing party would reasonably wish to rely upon. The duty concerns the proposed search and seizure. A history of consensual contact does not establish that a person would consent to a systematic evidential search.

This was a renewed application for permission to bring judicial review proceedings. The claimant challenged warrants issued by Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court under section 8 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, authorising searches of business premises and her home.

Several grounds had been abandoned. The remaining issue was whether the police had failed to disclose the full history of the claimant’s and her business’s co-operation with the police, and had wrongly certified that the statutory access conditions were satisfied. Hickinbottom J had previously refused permission on 6 October 2014.

1. Disposition. The claim was dismissed because it had not been brought promptly. Permission was also refused on the merits.
2. Full and frank disclosure. The police applying ex parte for a warrant under section 8 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 had to disclose all known information capable of affecting the magistrates’ decision. The application had to be approached as if the applicant were putting on a defence hat. The principles were drawn from Chatwani & Ors, R (on the application of) v The National Crime Agency & Anor [2015] EWHC 1283 (para [27]).
3. The court assessed compliance objectively. The disclosure of one previous harm-reduction visit was sufficient to enable the magistrates to assess whether section 8(3)(c) and (d) were satisfied. There was no evidence that the claimant had previously consented to a systematic search and seizure of evidential material. Her general co-operation with the police therefore did not require further disclosure (paras [32]-[36]).
4. The allegation that the home-warrant application falsely stated that the brothel was operated from the claimant’s home failed on the documents read as a whole. The business premises and the home address were clearly distinguished (paras [22]-[25]).
5. Where written evidence is supplemented orally on a warrant application, the oral evidence should be tape-recorded or noted by the applicant and submitted to the court for approval. The omission in this case made the record less reliable, but was not itself relied upon as an objection to the warrants’ lawfulness (paras [28]-[29]).
6. Delay. Under rule 54.5 of the Civil Procedure Rules, a claim must be filed promptly and in any event within three months. The claimant bore the burden of explaining delay. The fact that a claim was specialist, or that the claimant faced arrest, investigation or business disruption, did not justify the delay. The claim was therefore out of time in the relevant sense (paras [37]-[42]).

• High Court (Administrative Court): Hickinbottom J refused permission on 6 October 2014.
• High Court (Administrative Court), Divisional Court: the renewed application was dismissed for delay, and permission was refused on the merits.