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

The IPCC is not necessarily functus officio after receiving an investigation report. Under section 10(6) of the Police Reform Act 2002, and absent statutory prohibition, it may seek further information or revisit a defective investigation where that is calculated to fulfil its statutory functions. Any reopening requires a compelling reason and remains subject to judicial review.

A report is irrational where there is no logical connection between significant evidence and the conclusions reached. The court must examine the evidential reasoning rather than ask only whether any reasonable investigator could have reached the result.

Two judicial review claims arose from an IPCC investigation into allegations concerning Mr Demetrio’s arrest in a police van. The Commissioner sought to quash the IPCC’s decision to reopen the strangling allegation, supported by PC Harrington. Mr Demetrio separately sought to quash the conclusions in the final report, and the IPCC accepted that those conclusions were flawed.

The central issues were whether the IPCC had become functus officio, whether PC Harrington had a legitimate expectation that the allegation would not be revisited, and whether the report’s conclusion that there was no case to answer was irrational.

1. Disposition. The Commissioner’s claim was dismissed. Mr Demetrio’s claim was allowed. The relevant parts of the IPCC’s final report were quashed.
2. Reopening the investigation. A decision concerning whether disciplinary proceedings should be initiated is not equivalent to a final determination of statutory rights. The IPCC’s appellate decisions under Schedule 3 may be irrevocable because it acts in a quasi-judicial capacity, but that does not determine whether it may revisit an investigation carried out under its investigative functions.
3. Section 10(6) of the Police Reform Act 2002 permits the IPCC to do anything calculated to facilitate its functions, provided that it does not act directly contrary to Part 2 of the Act. The statutory scheme did not prohibit the IPCC from seeking further information about a seriously defective report. If functus officio applied, it could only do so after the IPCC had finally determined disciplinary action, by issuing a direction or agreeing the course proposed by the Commissioner. Reopening would require a compelling reason and would remain subject to judicial review.
4. Legitimate expectation and abuse of power. The statutory scheme created no authoritative representation that PC Harrington would never face further action. There was no bad faith, and the decision to reopen followed a genuine assessment that the investigation was deficient. The personal and professional burden of uncertainty did not outweigh the public interest in effective investigation.
5. Irrationality. The correct approach was to examine the connection between the available evidence and the conclusions. The report ignored the apparent contemporaneous admission by a police officer that Mr Demetrio had been strangled, gave no logical basis for identifying the speaker, and failed to connect the recording with PC Harrington’s evidence. It also failed to reconcile the medical evidence with PC Elton’s account and attributed to PC Harrington evidence that he had not given.
6. The reasoning errors were sufficiently serious to rob the conclusion of logic. The court made no findings of fact. Failure to obtain voice analysis was not, by itself, an independent public law error, since deciding whether to pursue an evidential lead involved judgment.