Gary Wimblett v The Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary

Accessory liability for a wrongful arrest requires more than the provision of information. The accessory must have procured the arrest, or provided non-trivial assistance pursuant to a common design, and must have known the essential facts making the arrest tortious. Where an arresting officer retains an independent discretion, a briefing or information case requires dishonesty or other wilful culpability before procurement is established. A direct order case may be different because the accessory may effectively make the arrest through the arresting officer. The claimant bears the legal burden of proving procurement and the relevant culpability, although a prima facie case may place an evidential burden on the defendant. The appeal was dismissed because the pleaded case and evidence disclosed no real prospect of proving procurement by the circulation of a police computer notice.

The claimant appealed from the judgment of HHJ Beech in the County Court at Preston, which dismissed his claim against the Chief Constable for false imprisonment, assault and battery following his arrest by Devon and Cornwall Police for an alleged breach of a non-molestation order. The claim against Lancashire Constabulary alleged that a Lancashire officer had procured the arrest by circulating a Police National Computer Nominal marked “Wanted Report with Power of Arrest”.

The central issues were whether the circulation of that notice constituted procurement, whether the briefing officer had to know that the arresting officer would lack a defence under section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and where the legal and evidential burdens lay.

1. Appeal dismissed. The appeal proceeded by way of review under CPR 52.21. The decision below could be disturbed only if it was wrong or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity. The issue involved both legal questions and an evaluative assessment of the pleaded case and evidence.
2. Following Lifestyle Equities CV v Ahmed [2024] UKSC 17; [2025] AC 1, accessory liability requires: (i) a primary act involving the essential facts making it a tort actionable by the claimant; (ii) procurement by the accessory, or non-trivial assistance pursuant to a common design; and (iii) knowledge, or wilful blindness, of those essential facts. In a wrongful-arrest case, the arrest itself is the essential fact for the strict-liability tort of false imprisonment. The accessory need not know whether the arresting officer has a defence under section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
3. The pre-existing authorities distinguish two overlapping categories. In a direct-order case, the arresting officer is deprived of any real opportunity to exercise independent judgment and acts as the accessory’s ministerial agent. In a briefing or information case, the arresting officer retains an independent discretion. Mere provision of information, even where an arrest is intended or foreseeable, is insufficient. Some wilful culpability, normally dishonesty, deliberate lying or turning a blind eye, is required before the information can amount to procurement. The court declined to impose rigid rules because procurement is fact-sensitive.
4. The circulation of a PNCN was not equivalent to a warrant or a direct order. It preserved the arresting officer’s obligation to decide independently whether arrest was lawful and necessary under section 24. It was therefore a briefing or information case. The claimant had to plead and prove that the officer went beyond providing information by acting dishonestly or with wilful culpability. If a prima facie case was raised, the defendant would bear an evidential burden of rebutting it, but the legal burden would remain with the claimant.
5. The requirements of section 24 did not have to be satisfied by the briefing officer at the time of providing information. His state of mind could nevertheless be relevant to whether he had crossed the line from information to procurement. A positive belief that arrest was unnecessary might be evidence of procurement; mere absence of an honest belief, or absence of objectively reasonable grounds, was not necessarily sufficient.
6. The claimant’s pleadings challenged the officer’s honesty and reasonable grounds, but the allegations and written evidence disclosed no serious issue capable of supporting dishonesty or wilful culpability. Even taking the claimant’s case at its highest, there was no real prospect that a jury would find procurement. The dismissal was therefore correct, although for reasons differing in part from those of the judge below.

• High Court (King’s Bench Division): appeal from the County Court at Preston dismissed; the judgment of HHJ Beech dated 19 August 2025 was upheld, albeit for partly different reasons.