THE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE OF THE METROPOLIS (R on the application of) v POLICE APPEALS TRIBUNAL

In reviewing a police disciplinary sanction, the Administrative Court must identify a public law error and must not substitute its own assessment of the appropriate sanction. A Police Appeals Tribunal must apply the structured approach: assess seriousness, consider the purposes of disciplinary sanctions, and select the sanction that best serves those purposes. The assessment should address culpability, harm, aggravating and mitigating features, while giving particular weight to public confidence and the reputation of policing.

A criminal conviction for violence by a serving officer is very serious, but dismissal is not automatically or almost inevitably required. Unlike operational dishonesty, such cases require a fact-specific assessment. Medical evidence may properly affect culpability, harm and the assessment of public confidence. The claim was dismissed.

The Commissioner sought judicial review of a Police Appeals Tribunal decision which had overturned DC Asweina Gutty’s dismissal following her conviction for assault by beating and substituted a final written warning.

The Commissioner accepted that the finding of gross misconduct was not in issue, but challenged the re-determination of sanction on four grounds: failure to apply the structured approach; inadequate treatment of the conviction and public confidence; excessive reliance on medical evidence; and reliance on the Equality Act 2010.

The central questions were whether the Tribunal had made an error of law, acted irrationally, or imposed a sanction outside the range reasonably open to it.

1. Disposition. The claim for judicial review was dismissed. The Police Appeals Tribunal was entitled to impose a final written warning.
2. Structured approach. The Tribunal had followed the required three-stage approach derived from Fuglers: assess seriousness, consider the purposes of sanctions, and select the sanction which most appropriately fulfils those purposes. Its reasoning addressed culpability, harm, aggravating and mitigating features, and personal mitigation in the proper sequence. It was entitled to adopt parts of the first-instance decision which were not challenged.
3. Conviction and violence. The Tribunal had not ignored the conviction, sentence, sentencing remarks, or the seriousness of violence and domestic abuse. The fact of conviction and the nature of the conduct were both relevant. The criminal sentence was not necessarily a reliable guide to seriousness in disciplinary proceedings. Express reference to every paragraph of the College of Policing Guidance was unnecessary where the substance of the guidance had been applied.
4. Medical evidence. The Tribunal was entitled to find that the officer’s psychiatric condition significantly reduced culpability and affected the foreseeability of harm. That finding could also inform the assessment of harm to public confidence and the reputation of the police service. The Commissioner’s disagreement with the weight given to the evidence did not establish irrationality or an error of law.
5. Sanction. There is no presumption that dismissal must follow every finding of gross misconduct. Operational dishonesty occupies a distinct category in which dismissal is almost inevitable. Criminal convictions, although extremely serious, cover a wide range of circumstances and require a structured, fact-specific assessment. The Tribunal could conclude that a final written warning met the purposes of the disciplinary regime in this unusual case.
6. Equality Act. The Tribunal expressly stated that it had not determined the Equality Act issue. Its separate observations about disability discrimination and occupational health did not influence the sanction decision and were not an irrelevant consideration affecting the outcome.

• Police Appeals Tribunal: allowed DC Gutty’s appeal against dismissal and re-determined the sanction as a final written warning on 23 May 2021.
• High Court (Administrative Court): dismissed the Commissioner’s judicial review challenge.