Christopher Watson v Chief Constable of Humberside Police

A judge must decide a case within the framework of the parties’ pleaded issues. The judge may accept part of a witness’s evidence and reject the remainder, but cannot substitute an unpleaded factual basis for the defendant’s pleaded justification where that issue was not explored in evidence and the claimant is prejudiced.

In an arrest case, the court must identify the arresting officer’s actual grounds for suspicion or belief and then assess whether those grounds were reasonable. It cannot construct different grounds retrospectively. On that basis, the appeal succeeded in relation to assault, battery and false imprisonment, but the dismissal of the malicious prosecution claim stood because unchallenged elements of that tort remained unresolved.

The appellant appealed after the County Court at Kingston-upon-Hull dismissed claims arising from his arrest by two police officers. The claims alleged assault and battery, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

The recorder rejected the officers’ evidence that the appellant had lunged at them with a knife. He nevertheless found that the appellant’s possession of the knife, refusal to drop it and conduct during a mental health crisis justified the officers’ suspicion, arrest and use of force. He also found reasonable and probable cause for the prosecution and no malice.

The appeal concerned whether the recorder had lawfully relied on factual grounds which differed from the respondent’s pleaded case, and whether the malicious prosecution findings could be revisited on appeal.

1. Appeal on assault, battery and false imprisonment allowed. The recorder was not entitled to find that the appellant had committed affray when the respondent had not pleaded that case. More importantly, the respondent’s pleaded case identified the officers’ grounds for suspicion as the appellant pointing a knife at an officer, walking towards him, shouting threats and adopting an aggressive posture. The recorder found that those events had not occurred and that the officers could not honestly have believed that they had. He therefore could not find different grounds for the officers’ suspicion.
2. The same conclusion applied to the officers’ belief that arrest was necessary to prevent injury to others and to the alleged self-defence. Although the pleaded case referred generally to the appellant’s conduct, the only pleaded basis for danger to the officers was the alleged threat with the knife. The recorder could not construct a different justification from facts which had not been pleaded or explored in evidence. The principles concerning pleaded issues in Al-Medenni, and the arrest analysis in Parker and R (L), supported that approach.
3. The burden of proving lawful justification remained on the respondent. The court must scrutinise police use of force, arrest and detention, but that burden did not create a separate limitation beyond the requirement to decide the pleaded issues.
4. The malicious prosecution claim remained dismissed. The recorder had wrongly found reasonable and probable cause for the Public Order Act 1986 section 4 prosecution, but the appeal did not challenge whether the relevant officers were prosecutors in the Martin v Watson sense or whether they acted with malice. Those issues could not properly be determined for the first time on appeal.
5. The parties were invited to agree an order, including damages. The court expressed no concluded view on whether damages should be assessed by the High Court or remitted to the County Court.

• High Court (King’s Bench Division): appeal allowed in relation to assault, battery and false imprisonment; dismissal of the malicious prosecution claim upheld.
• County Court at Kingston-upon-Hull: following trial, the recorder dismissed all claims in a judgment handed down on 30 August 2023.