Claudia Hicks and Others v Senior Coroner for Inner North London Officer A and Others (Interested Parties)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Irwin,Lord Justice Gross |
| Judgment Date | 15 July 2016 |
| Neutral Citation | [2016] EWHC 1726 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/3084/2016 |
| Date | 15 July 2016 |
[2016] EWHC 1726 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Gross
Mr Justice Irwin
Case No: CO/3084/2016
The Queen (on the application of)
and
Caoilfhionn Gallagher, Jesse Nicholls (instructed by Bindmans LLP) for the Claimants
Neil Saunders and Rachel Barnes (instructed by Reynolds Dawson Solicitors) for The First to the Fourth Interested Parties
Jason Beer QC (instructed by Metropolitan Police Service) for the Fifth Interested Party
Hearing date: 17 June 2016
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
Introduction
Henry Hicks died on 19 December 2014 when his Moped collided with a stationary car in Wheelwright Street, Islington. He had been reported as failing to stop by police, and two unmarked police cars were in following at the time.
At the time of this application for judicial review, the Inquest into the death of Henry Hicks was in train, before the Senior Coroner for Inner North London, Ms M E Hassell. The challenge was to a Ruling of the Coroner on Monday 13 June, with the effect that Hicks family members (and the public and members of the press) would be excluded from the hearing room during the evidence of the four police officers who were in the two police cars at the time of the death. The Coroner had ordered that the family, the public and media representatives could listen to this evidence in a second room, by means of an audio link.
The proceedings were issued on Thursday 16 June, and the papers came to me that afternoon. I gave various directions that day, and a "rolled-up" application, for permission and for judicial review, was heard the following afternoon.
On the afternoon of 17 June, the Court granted permission to apply but dismissed the application for judicial review. I now give my reasons for that Order.
Before turning to the detail of the case, I repeat the remarks made by Gross LJ at the hearing. Whatever the circumstances, the loss of the life of an 18 year old is very sad. The Court recognises the great impact of that loss on the Claimants and on the wider family of Henry Hicks.
The Facts
It is common ground that Henry Hicks had been the focus of great attention by the police in Islington. He had been stopped 89 times between October 2011 and December 2014. He had no convictions.
On the day in question Henry Hicks was seen riding a 300cc Vespa Super Moped. The moped was stolen and had number plates registered to a different machine. The officers in vehicle 1 saw him, and the suspicion arose that he might be in possession of controlled drug with intent to supply. The two unmarked vehicles pursued the moped. The moped and cars travelled at speed. We were told that the Moped struck the offside of a stationary minicab in Wheelwright Street, and that the rider lost control and fell. It is suggested Mr Hicks then struck the front of an oncoming vehicle and was himself struck by the Moped, causing catastrophic brain injuries and death. Clearly, the conclusion as to facts and any resultant verdict are for the Inquest jury, and not for us. However, to the extent I have set it out, the story shows why the evidence of the four police officers is important. The family blame the police in general, and the four officers in particular, for the death.
From very shortly after the death, hostility to the police officers in question was widely expressed on social media. I do not intend to set out the content, although quite extensive material has been placed before this Court. There were widespread expressions of hostility, expressed in strong language, often obscene and graphic. A number of the messages contained threats, again often graphic. One example will be sufficient:
"You know what you've done, you'll get what's coming to you, police are killers, murdering scum … Don't think you're not gonna get what's coming to you after you've killed Hicksy, you'll see mug. The guns are going to come out on the estate."
Much of the traffic on social media involved Mr Hicks's sister Claudia and his father Mr David Hicks. There are from each expressions of great hostility and anger, expressed with particular force by Claudia Hicks. Neither Claudia nor David Hicks issue direct threats, but there are vehement expressions of wish that the officers will suffer pain and loss. There is no indication in the exchanges that the family reject or disapprove of the threats of others, although at one time the point is made that they may not help as to the conduct of the Inquest.
Whilst much of this material is likely to have been venting of feelings, rather than the expression of genuine threat, the volume and tone of the threatening material was and is, in my view, sufficient to give rise to a real apprehension of threat to the four officers concerned, if they were to be identified.
Proceedings before the Coroner
On 15 June 2015, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner made an application for anonymity for the four officers A to D. At that stage, the officers had not been joined as Interested Persons and were not separately represented. The Commissioner did not base his application on the material I have described, which was not then placed before the Coroner.
The Coroner had before her a risk assessment of T/DCI Cheadle of 5 June 2015, assessing the risk of significant harm to the officers as "probable". The risk included a risk to life and "the highest risk band" applied.
The Coroner also had a witness statement of Detective Superintendent Ryan, reviewing police intelligence since the death of Henry Hicks. Threats had been made on different occasions by six individuals. Named officers had been threatened. Two arrests had been made as a consequence of relevant threats. Further threats to the officers had been relayed from the London Probation Service and British Transport Police. Two of the four officers had taken time off work through stress. The two officers remaining at work were no longer able to work in Islington borough.
The application was based on the Coroner's power under Rules 11 and 18 of the Coroners (Inquests) Rules 2013 ["the Rules"]. Rule 11 defines the circumstances (not arising here) in which the public may be excluded from an inquest hearing, and otherwise stipulates that an inquest hearing must be in public. Rule 18 empowers a Coroner to direct that a witness at an inquest may give evidence from behind a screen. The relevant parts of the Rule read:
"Evidence given from behind a screen
18.
(1) A coroner may direct that a witness may give evidence at an inquest hearing from behind a screen.
(2) A direction may not be given under paragraph (1) unless the coroner determines that giving evidence in the way proposed would be likely to improve the quality of the evidence given by the witness or allow the inquest to proceed more expediently.
(3) In making that determination, the coroner must consider all the circumstances of the case, including in particular—
(a) any views expressed by the witness or an interested person;
(b) whether it would be in the interests of justice or national security to allow evidence to be given from behind a screen; and
(c) whether giving evidence from behind a screen would impede the effectiveness of the questioning of the witness by an interested person or a representative of the interested person."
The Application cited the real and immediate risk to the lives (Article 2, ECHR) or of serious harm (Article 3, ECHR) of the officers, and relied on the observation of Lord Carswell in In Re Officer L and Others [2007] 1 WLR 2135, at paragraph 20 and 21. The submission was that the risks objectively justified anonymity and the use of screens. Further, it was unfair and wrong that witnesses should be avoidably subjected to fears arising from giving evidence, particularly if giving rise to an adverse impact on their health.
The Coroner granted the application and ordered that:
"The four police officers discussed at the PIR are afforded anonymity and will be referred to and addressed as:
Officer A driver of vehicle 1
Officer B operator of vehicle 1
Officer C driver of vehicle 2
Officer D operator of vehicle 2
At inquest, their faces and any identifying features will be visible only to HM Coroner (HMC), the jury, advocates for the interested persons (IPs) and the immediate family of the deceased. No person shall identify them."
In the intervening period between that Order and the scheduled hearing of the Inquest on 13 June 2016, there were a number of developments in the case. The four officers had been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). The IPCC conducted an investigation, and concluded that disciplinary proceedings should be brought against the four. The Coroner sought to make arrangements for the hearing in a courtroom with arrangements for screening witnesses, her preferred location being the Royal Courts of Justice. However, those attempts did not bear fruit, and at a Pre Inquest Review on 24 May, she directed that the hearing was to take place at St Pancras Coroner's Court. Although the four were joined as Interested Persons and were represented at the hearing on 24 May, counsel was recently...
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...(The Queen (on the application of) Claudia Hicks and Others and the Senior Coroner for Inner North London and Others (Defendants)[2016]EWHC 1726 ( Admin)). Threats were made via social media to the lives and safety of the police officer witnesses involved in a car chase which resulted in th......