Metropolitan Police Commissioner, R (on the application of) v Police Misconduct Panel

A police misconduct panel may dismiss proceedings for no case to answer using the Galbraith discipline. It must consider whether, taking the appropriate authority’s evidence at its highest, a reasonable and properly directed panel could find the allegation proved. It must not decide the preferred view of the evidence prematurely or assess credibility as though the hearing had reached its end.

On judicial review, the court exercises a supervisory jurisdiction. It must not substitute its own assessment of how Galbraith should be applied. Intervention is justified where the decision is outside the range of reasonable decisions or contains a demonstrable reasoning flaw. Where the evidence requires both sides’ cases to be heard and factual findings to be made, half-time dismissal is unlawful.

The appropriate authority sought judicial review of a Police Misconduct Panel’s decision finding no case to answer on three allegations against a police officer. The allegations concerned two alleged acts of non-consensual physical touching and a course of inappropriate sexualised WhatsApp messages.

The Panel applied limb 2 of Galbraith to allegations 1 and 3, and limb 1 to allegation 2. The agreed issues were whether the Panel had properly applied the test and whether its conclusions were unreasonable. The central questions were the proper approach to a half-time no-case decision in police disciplinary proceedings and the limits of supervisory judicial review.

1. Judicial review. The court’s role was supervisory, not substitutionary. It was not permissible to invite the court to decide for itself whether Galbraith had been correctly applied. Absent a legal misdirection, the relevant question was whether the Panel’s decision was outside the range of reasonable decisions or contained a demonstrable flaw in reasoning.
2. No-case test. The Panel had to maintain the Galbraith discipline applicable to magistrates. It had to consider the appropriate authority’s evidence at its highest and ask whether a reasonable and properly directed panel could find the allegation proved on one possible view. It could not bring forward its end-of-hearing function of preferring one evidential account, deciding credibility or making final findings of fact.
3. Allegations 1 and 2. The Panel failed to consider logically probative connections between the alleged acts of physical touching, the WhatsApp messages, and the evidence of disclosure. In relation to allegation 2, it wrongly separated the alleged simulated fat-calliper incident from the references to fat callipers and sexual gratification. The conclusions were therefore not reasonably open to it.
4. Allegation 3. The Panel could not fairly determine that the messaging was inherently weak without hearing both sides’ evidence and making concrete findings about the parties’ interactions, including their timing and context. Its reasoning prematurely adopted a preferred view of disputed evidence.
5. The claim succeeded on grounds 2, 4 and 6. The no-case decisions were quashed and the allegations were remitted to a differently constituted panel for fresh consideration. There was no order as to costs.

The judgment itself describes the underlying misconduct hearing before the Defendant Panel. The Panel dismissed all three allegations by finding no case to answer. The High Court granted judicial review on grounds 2, 4 and 6, quashed that decision and remitted the matter to a differently constituted panel.