Mrs Nicola White (R on the application of) v POLICE MEDICAL APPEAL BOARD

Under the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006, an injury received while a constable is on duty is a distinct qualifying category from an injury received in the execution of duty.

For an organic injury caused by a single accident, the “while on duty” category is principally temporal. It does not require proof of a causal connection between the injury and the constable’s work activities. The causation approach developed for psychiatric illness or disease with an insidious onset does not apply indiscriminately to simple accident injuries.

The deeming provision is mandatory. A decision-maker must not import an activity-based requirement into the temporal category. The Board’s contrary approach was an error of law.

The claimant, a former police constable, applied for injury benefits after suffering a knee injury during workplace horseplay while on duty. The selected medical practitioner rejected the claim, and the Police Medical Appeal Board accepted that the injury occurred while she was on duty but held that it was not received in the execution of her duty.

The judicial review concerned the proper construction of regulations 6(1) and 6(2)(a), particularly whether the latter required a causal connection between the injury and the execution of police duty. The court also considered the Home Office Guidance on Medical Appeals, while declining to determine its overall lawfulness because the issue had not been fully argued.

1. Claim allowed. The Board’s decision of 16 April 2021 was quashed for error of law.
2. Regulation 6(1) of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006 establishes the execution-of-duty category. It is activity-based and requires the injury to have been received in the execution of the constable’s duty.
3. Regulation 6(2)(a), first sentence, establishes a separate while-on-duty category. For an organic injury caused by a single accident, the decision-maker must determine whether the claimant received an injury and whether it was received while on duty. The provision is temporal and does not require an additional causal connection with the execution of police duty.
4. The words in regulation 6(2) deem an injury satisfying regulation 6(2)(a) to have been received in the execution of duty. That deeming provision is mandatory. It cannot be hollowed out by treating the execution-of-duty requirement in regulation 6(1) as overriding or qualifying the separate categories in regulation 6(2).
5. The authorities concerning psychiatric illness, disease and other injuries developing over time require careful treatment. In such cases, a temporal test may be incapable of application, and a causal connection with service may be necessary. That reasoning does not impose a universal causation requirement for simple organic injuries received while on duty.
6. The Board therefore erred by accepting that the injury occurred while the claimant was on duty but importing a further requirement that the injury resulted from the execution of her police duties.
7. The Home Office Guidance materially conflated regulation 6 qualification with regulation 8 causation between injury and disablement. The judge considered the Guidance misleading and in parts wrong, and stated that it should be withdrawn and redrafted. However, the overall lawfulness of the Guidance was not decided because the issue had not been fully argued and relevant parties were absent.

First-instance judicial review in the Administrative Court. Permission was granted on 9 September 2021. The court quashed the Police Medical Appeal Board’s decision of 16 April 2021.