F & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v Blackfriars Crown Court & Anor
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE ELIAS
- MR JUSTICE KENNETH PARKER
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In the case heard on 20 August 2013, concerning an application for a judicial review on a search warrant granted for the company FF, their director MK, and her husband K, the court examined relevant legislative provisions under PACE. The claimants contested the warrant citing unlawful seizure of documents. The court identified that the warrant improperly included categories beyond permissible scope, such as excluded and legally privileged materials. The warrant was deemed unlawfully issued and was quashed accordingly.
J U D G M E N T
LORD JUSICE ELIAS: On 20 August 2013 at the Crown Court at Blackfriars before His Honour Judge Marron QC, the judge granted search warrants over two premises on the application of Detective Constable Parker. The warrants were sought under section 9 , read with Schedule 1, of The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 ( PACE ). They were executed simultaneously on the morning of 28 August.
The claimants brought proceedings for judicial review in relation to one of those warrants only, the warrant made with respect to a company I shall identify as FF”. The claimants are the company itself, its director MK and her husband K. They contend that for various reasons the warrant was unlawfully granted and the documents were, therefore, unlawfully seized.
This is a rolled-up hearing, the permission application and, if granted, the substantive application being heard together.
The Legislative Provisions
Before considering the facts of the case, I will set out the relevant legislative context. Part 2 of PACE deals with powers of entry, search and seizure. The rules are designed to ensure that a balance is obtained between, on the one hand, ensuring that citizens can properly protect their property from unnecessarily intrusive or unjustified invasion and, on the other, ensuring that the wider public interest in the effective investigation and prosecution of crime is secured: see the observations of Bingham LJ, as he was, in R v Crown Court at Lewes ex parte Hill [1991] 93 Cr. App. R. 60 at page 66.
Because the law permits such a significant interference with the liberty of the subject, the decision to authorise a search is given to a judge. As Lord Hoffmann pointed out in A-G for Jamaica v Williams [1998] AC 351 at 358, the judicial duty to ensure that the legal conditions for entering private premises are satisfied is one of high constitutional importance and requires a most careful scrutiny of the circumstances allegedly justifying the intrusion.
Section 9(1) of PACE is the power which was relied upon in this case. It is as follows:
"A constable may obtain access to excluded material or special procedure material for the purposes of a criminal investigation by making an application under Schedule 1 below and in accordance with that Schedule."
Special procedure material is defined in section 14 PACE and includes by subsection 2:
"... material, other than items subject to legal privilege and excluded material, in the possession of a person