R v Samuel Miller & Anor

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 section 24A does not itself confer a power to use force. Force used in effecting a citizen’s arrest derives from section 3(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 and must be reasonable in the circumstances. A section 3 prevention-of-crime defence need not be left to a jury where the agreed evidence could not support a finding that force was reasonably required to avert harm, including where the suspected offence involved only an adult decoy or where feared future offending was not imminent. Force used before a constable is present cannot amount to assistance with that constable’s arrest.

The applicants were convicted at Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court of falsely imprisoning Phillip Morris during a planned vigilante operation conducted by their voluntary online-safety group. They renewed applications for leave to appeal against conviction after a single judge refused permission.

They contended that the trial judge wrongly withdrew aspects of the section 3 defence under the Criminal Law Act 1967, and wrongly combined that provision with the citizen’s-arrest regime in section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Miller also challenged the admission of hearsay concerning a count of which he was acquitted and the direction on his bad character. The central issue was whether the convictions were arguably unsafe.

1. The renewed applications for leave to appeal against conviction were refused. None of the proposed grounds was arguable and the convictions were not arguably unsafe.
2. The trial judge correctly left to the jury the possibility of a lawful citizen’s arrest under section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, together with the use of reasonable force under section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967. She was entitled to withdraw the additional asserted section 3 defences. On the agreed facts, the suspected offence involving an adult decoy created no risk of harm requiring prevention. Nor could force reasonably be used to prevent possible future offences which were not imminent. The force was used before any constable was present and therefore did not assist a constable’s arrest.
3. Section 24A itself confers no power to use force. The power for a civilian arises under section 3, subject to its requirement of reasonableness; a constable’s power instead arises under section 117 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The judge was therefore right to direct the jury on reasonable force and to refer to R v Jones [2006] UKHL 16.
4. The hearsay ruling was properly made. The judge was entitled to find, to the criminal standard, that the relevant witnesses were too frightened to give evidence and that admission was in the interests of justice. In any event, that evidence concerned a count on which Miller was acquitted and did not arguably render the Count 1 conviction unsafe.
5. The bad-character direction was confined to Miller’s credibility and whether he had truthfully described his beliefs. It was not a propensity direction. Even if it had been inappropriate, it did not arguably render the conviction unsafe.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — in [2024] EWCA Crim 794, refused the renewed applications for leave to appeal against conviction.
• Crown Court at Newcastle upon Tyne — on 6 April 2023, a jury convicted both applicants of false imprisonment in Count 1. Miller was acquitted of Counts 2 and 3.