Court of Appeal hands down combined judgment in Woodcock v Chief Constable of Northamptonshire and CJ and others v Chief Constable of Wiltshire

In the Northamptonshire case, the Court of Appeal allowed the Chief Constable’s appeal, holding that the police had not owed a duty of care to warn the claimant that they had received a report that her former partner, who had threatened her with violence, was loitering outside her home. The former partner stabbed her when she went outside to go to work, moments before the police arrived to arrest him. Applying Supreme Court authorities, including the recent decision in Tindall v Chief Constable of the Thames Valley [2024] UKSC 33 (in which Andrew Warnock KC and Ella Davis, instructed by DAC Beachcroft, represented the successful Chief Constable), the Court held the claim was for an omission/failure to confer a benefit, for which the common law does not generally impose liability. Disagreeing with the High Court judge (Ritchie J) that the police had assumed a responsibility to the Claimant, the Court of Appeal held that such an assumption would normally require evidence of a specific representation or promise by the police to take a particular action, and reliance upon that by the claimant or another, and neither element had been established on the facts.

In the Wiltshire case, the Court of Appeal dismissed the claimants’ appeal, holding that the High Court judge (Martin Spencer J) had been correct to hold that the police had not owed a duty of care in their investigation of offences of downloading indecent images, and so were not liable to the claimants, children whom the perpetrator went on to sexually abuse. The Court of Appeal agreed with the High Court judge that the claims were for a failure to confer a benefit/omission. The Court of Appeal further held that Martin Spencer J had been correct to dismiss claims for breach of the investigatory duty under article 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998, because the offences which the police had been investigating had not been of a sufficient level of severity to engage article 3, and in any event the children in the images could not be identified. Further, a generalised risk of future harm was not sufficient to engage the operational duty.

In both cases, the Court of Appeal rejected submissions that the “interference principle”, recognised by the Supreme Court in Tindall, was engaged. That principle is that if A knows or ought to have known that B is in need of help to avoid some harm, and A knows or ought to have known that he has done something to put off or prevent someone from helping B, then A will owe a duty to take reasonable steps to give B the help she needs. The Court held that in neither case was there any evidence, or findings by the trial judge, that the police had prevented or put off someone else from helping, or that they knew or ought to have known that they had done so.

Andrew Warnock KC, leading Matthew Holdcroft and Cecily White from Serjeants Inn Chambers, represented the successful chief constables in both cases. He was instructed by DWF Law LLP in the Northamptonshire Case, and by Wiltshire Police Legal Services in the Wiltshire case.