Joseph Quirke, R (on the application of) v Chief Constable of Avon & Somerset Constabulary

A police vetting decision based on non-conviction information must apply the applicable two-stage test: whether there are reasonable grounds for suspicion, and, if so, whether refusing clearance is appropriate in all the circumstances. Relevant factors are non-exhaustive and may inform either stage. Judicial review remains supervisory. The court must respect the primary decision-maker’s evaluative judgment, while correcting demonstrable flaws in reasoning or decisions outside the reasonable range. A decision-maker may rely on reasonable suspicion and the absence of irrefutable evidence of falsity when assessing risk, public protection and public confidence. The court will not substitute its own assessment of credibility, risk or proportionality where the decision-maker has considered the relevant matters and reached a reasonably open evaluative conclusion.

The claimant, a probationary police constable, challenged the decision of a Police Vetting Appeal Panel to uphold the revocation of his vetting clearance. The revocation concerned non-conviction information arising from his arrest, aged 18, following an allegation involving a 14-year-old girl. The investigation ended without charge because of insufficient evidence.

The claimant alleged that the appeal decision unlawfully treated the arrest as sufficient for reasonable suspicion, failed to assess the allegation’s credibility, adopted errors in the original revocation decision, and gave inadequate weight to the passage of time, his age and the impact on his career. The central issue was whether the decision was unreasonable in public law.

1. The claim was refused. The interim injunction was set aside and the claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s costs, summarily assessed at £19,038.
2. The applicable vetting framework required a two-stage assessment. First, the decision-maker had to ask whether there were reasonable grounds for suspecting involvement in criminal activity or other adverse matters. Secondly, if that threshold was met, the decision-maker had to decide whether refusal was appropriate in all the circumstances. The listed factors were non-exhaustive.
3. The appeal chair had not treated the arrest as automatically determinative. Reading the reasons fairly and as a whole, she had considered the investigation, its poor standard, the lack of evidence, the single allegation, the non-conviction data and the circumstances surrounding the missing mobile phone. The closure of the investigation reflected insufficient evidence to meet the charging threshold, not a finding that the allegation was untrue.
4. Credibility under Factor [c] was not confined to whether irrefutable evidence established that the allegation was false or malicious. Nevertheless, the appeal chair was entitled to focus on that expressly identified consideration. She was not required to adopt a court-like assessment of whether the alleged event probably occurred. Her evaluative function included assessment of risk, public protection, mitigation and public confidence.
5. The court applied the conventional public-law standard of unreasonableness. That included both decisions outside the reasonable range and demonstrable flaws in the reasoning process. The intensity of review varied with context, but the court had to respect the latitude of the primary decision-maker on judgment, evaluation and appreciation. The chair had considered the six factors and the overall proportionality, including the impact on the claimant. Reasonable disagreement about the weight given to individual factors did not establish unlawfulness.