Durrant v Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary (Rev 1)
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- HIS HONOUR JUDGE SEYS LLEWELLYN QC
Areas of Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Human Rights Law
- Employment Law
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Claimant, arrested under suspicion of assault, was acquitted but later sued the police. She alleged racial discrimination, improper treatment, false imprisonment, and other claims. The court found her arrest lawful, unconscious racial stereotyping in treatment differences, failure to meet Article 3 ECHR standards on toilet access, and no bias in police investigations. Other claims were unproven.
Judgment
The Claimant is a young woman of mixed race. She was arrested by police in Bristol in the early hours of 13 June 2009 on asserted suspicion of assaulting a taxi marshal. On 14 August 2009, following advice from the CPS, the Claimant was charged with an offence under section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 and with assault. The matter came to trial on 25 February 2010. On the second day of the trial the prosecution offered no evidence against her and she was acquitted.
The Plaintiff makes criticisms of almost all of the police officers involved in her arrest, detention, prosecution, and the investigation of her complaints, and she complains of the failure of the police to prosecute the 2 taxi marshals.
In the present proceedings, she has over time served a number of documents by way of particulars of claim. The proceedings now include claim for false imprisonment (by unlawful arrest), assault (in that she was unlawfully and forcibly detained), malicious prosecution, race discrimination, breach of Article 3 of the Convention of Human Rights (in that the police treatment caused her humiliation in particular by being forced to urinate in a holding cell with others present) and misfeasance. By amendment, she later added a claim for defamation.
The police also arrested in the early hours of 13 June 2009 her friend Lisa Putterill, who is white, on asserted suspicion of assault at the taxi rank, and a Mr Allen, but they arrested them only after they had arrested the Claimant. The Claimant was placed in the rear, caged, area of a police van. Lisa Putterill was placed in the van itself, not in the caged area. Both she and Lisa Putterill were transported in the same van to the police station. Each was processed at the police station, but Lisa Putterill and Mr Allen were processed before the Claimant.
While detained in the police station, she informed police officers that she needed to use the toilet; there was a delay; and as a result of that delay to her humiliation she urinated on the floor in a holding cell where others were present, in particular male police officers and some male detainees.
The Claimant made complaint to the custody officer herself on the day of her arrest that she was the subject of racial discrimination in her arrest and/or treatment. She also made complaint of that after the day of her arrest to the Professional Standards Department (PSD) of the Defendant police force. Her complaints were the subject of investigation in 2009 but