Lynsay Watson, R (on the application of) v The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police

In judicial review proceedings, a person is an interested party where the remedy sought directly affects that person’s legal rights or creates an enhanced risk of criminal proceedings. Direct effect does not require the remedy to produce an immediate charge. Further investigation, or possible involvement of the Crown Prosecution Service, does not necessarily constitute an intervening agency that makes the effect indirect.

A person who is the subject of a complaint may therefore be directly affected by a challenge to a decision to stop investigating, particularly where the remedy would require renewed investigation of that person’s conduct. Limited redactions to a claimant’s personal details may be ordered where they are necessary and proportionate notwithstanding open justice.

The claimant sought judicial review of an inspector’s decision to take no further action on her complaint that tweets from the @WingsScotland account disclosed various criminal offences. Permission to proceed had been granted by HHJ Bird.

After the substantive hearing, the court considered whether the alleged author of the tweets should be added as an interested party under CPR 54.1(f). The claimant also sought redaction of her date of birth, addresses and telephone numbers from the court papers. The central issues were whether the author was directly affected by the remedy sought and whether the proposed redactions were justified.

1. The author of the tweets was added as an interested party. The relevant question under CPR 54.1(f) was whether the person was directly affected by the claim. The phrase connotes being affected without the intervention of any intermediate agency, as explained in R v Liverpool City Council ex p Muldoon [1996] 1 WLR 1103.
2. The remedy sought was likely to quash the decision to take no further action and remit the matter for further investigation. It would not automatically result in a charge. Nevertheless, the author would be the immediate subject of, and integral to, the investigation. His legal rights would be in issue because he would face an enhanced risk of criminal proceedings. He could also be charged without CPS involvement. He was therefore affected simply by reason of the grant of the remedy.
3. The case was materially different from Muldoon and In re Salmon; Priest v Uppleby (1889) 42 Ch D 351, where the relevant effects operated through collateral subsidy or indemnity arrangements. The decisions in R (F) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2013] EWHC 945 (Admin), R (Monica) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2018] EWHC 3508 (Admin) and R (Torpey) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2019] EWHC 1804 (Admin), together with comparable cases, supported recognition of potential or actual defendants as interested parties. The fact that the author had not yet given an account to the police was not decisive.
4. Limited redactions of the claimant’s date of birth, addresses and telephone numbers were justified. They represented a necessary intrusion into open justice because the claimant alleged that the author had committed offences including harassment, there was no obvious public interest in disclosure of those details, and the case could be fully reported without them.
5. The court directed that the author be added and served with the claim and relevant documents. The court papers were to be replaced with redacted versions, subject to liberty to apply for removal of the redactions.