ANDREW PARKER (R on the application of) v THE MAGISTRATES COURT AT TEESSIDE

Under section 82(12) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, a magistrates’ court must address three questions when awarding expenses after a successful private statutory-nuisance prosecution:

1. what expenses were properly incurred;
2. what amount is reasonably sufficient to compensate the prosecutor; and
3. where there is more than one defendant, what proportion is fair and reasonable.

The provision imposes a statutory duty, although the court retains evaluative judgment within the statutory questions. A defendant’s means must not be used as the general basis, or “prism”, for deciding whether to make or quantify the costs order. Means primarily concern recovery and enforcement, although resources may exceptionally assist the assessment of reasonable sufficiency or apportionment. The court must investigate the claim in a broad-brush way and give legally adequate reasons.

The claimant brought statutory-nuisance proceedings concerning a defective party wall. The nuisance was admitted and an abatement order was agreed. Costs remained disputed between the claimant and two interested parties.

The magistrates’ court ordered the interested parties to pay only £100. The District Judge focused on the first interested party’s asserted inability to pay, did not examine the costs schedule, and did not assess the claimed expenses by reference to section 82(12).

The claimant sought judicial review, contending that the District Judge had applied the wrong legal approach, failed to consider relevant matters, and gave inadequate reasons. The central issues were the proper construction of section 82(12) and whether judicial review should proceed despite the availability and expiry of the case-stated appeal route.

1. The claim succeeded. The District Judge’s costs decision was quashed and the question of costs was remitted to a differently constituted bench.
2. Section 82(12) imposes a statutory duty, not a general discretion. The magistrates’ court must ask: what expenses were properly incurred; what amount is reasonably sufficient to compensate the private prosecutor; and, if there is more than one defendant, what proportion is fair and reasonable.
3. The court has evaluative latitude in answering those questions, but must apply the correct statutory criteria, disregard legal irrelevancies, reach a conclusion within the range of reasonable responses, and give adequate reasons. The process is broad-brush and summary, but it requires sufficient investigation of a substantial or challenged costs claim.
4. The District Judge erred by assessing costs through the prism of the interested parties’ means. Means are relevant to recovery and enforcement of an order, not generally to whether the order should be made. They are not a freestanding aspect of “reasonably sufficient to compensate”. Relative resources might exceptionally assist the assessment of the level of reasonable costs or the fair and reasonable apportionment between co-defendants, but that possibility did not justify the approach adopted.
5. The District Judge did not examine the costs schedule, identify expenses which were not properly incurred, assess whether claimed amounts were reasonably sufficient to compensate, or consider apportionment. His decision therefore failed to apply the statutory route to verdict.
6. Case-stated appeal was the appropriate route and was subject to a strict 21-day limit. Nevertheless, the alternative-remedy principle is a discretionary bar, not a jurisdictional bar. In the particular circumstances, including the absence of objection, the grant of permission, the lack of procedural disadvantage, and the manifest legal error, it was in the interests of justice to grant judicial review.

First-instance judicial review decision. The judgment records no appeal or later appellate decision.