Holmes v Merseyside Police

On an appeal from summary judgment in a false-imprisonment claim, the court must determine the pleaded case. Unpleaded allegations of conspiracy and a free-standing Convention claim should not divert attention from whether the arrest was lawful. An arrest for obstruction is lawful where the officer genuinely and reasonably believes that the claimant is obstructing the officer in the execution of duty, even if the officer’s underlying belief about the power to require movement is later shown to be mistaken. Unchallenged evidence explaining detention and subsequent arrests may justify summary judgment.

The claimant brought proceedings for false imprisonment arising from his removal from a protest location, arrests on 26, 27 and 28 September 2011, and detention. He alleged that the arrests lacked reasonable grounds and that the detention was unlawful. The defendant applied for summary judgment under CPR Part 24.

Mr Recorder Eccles granted summary judgment, treating the claim principally as one concerning an alleged conspiracy and breach of Article 10 of the ECHR. The claimant appealed, contending that the Recorder had been diverted from the pleaded issue of whether the arrests were lawful. The central issue was whether there was a reasonable prospect of establishing that the arresting officer lacked a genuine and reasonable belief that the claimant was obstructing him in the execution of his duty.

1. Appeal dismissed. Permission to appeal was granted, but the appeal failed. The Recorder had reached the correct result for reasons which were materially different from those given below.
2. The pleaded case concerned the lawfulness of the arrests and detention. The claimant’s unpleaded belief that he was the subject of a conspiracy, and his assertion that his Article 10 rights had been infringed, should not have displaced that issue. Article 10 was pleaded as relevant to aggravated damages, not as a free-standing cause of action under sections 6 and 7 of the Human Rights Act 1998. (paras [43]–[45])
3. The relevant question was whether there was a reasonably arguable case that PC Mackey lacked reasonable grounds for believing or suspecting that the claimant was obstructing him in the execution of his duty. On the apparently agreed facts, there was no reasonable prospect of proving that the officer did not genuinely and reasonably hold that belief. The officer was acting on instructions to remove the claimant from the chosen protest location and prevent his return.
4. The officer’s belief might have been legally mistaken. That did not prevent the arrest from being lawful if the belief was genuine and reasonable in the circumstances. The court treated McCann v Crown Prosecution Service, [2015] EWHC 2461 (Admin), as closely analogous. (para [46])
5. The claims concerning the length of detention and the later arrests were also properly dismissed. The defendant had supplied evidence explaining and justifying those matters, and the claimant did not contest it. That left no sensible prospect of success. (para [47])

• High Court (Queen's Bench Division): appeal from the order of Mr Recorder Eccles dated 25 October 2017 granting summary judgment under CPR Part 24. Appeal dismissed.