Court of Appeal
| DOI | 10.1177/002201834801200406 |
| Date | 01 October 1948 |
| Published date | 01 October 1948 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Court of Appeal
PRODUCTION
OF
DOCUMENTS:
POLICE
OFFICER'S
NOTEBOOK
EXEMPT
FROM
INSPECTION
Brooks o. Prescott
IN
an
action for damages for false imprisonment
and
assault brought against certain police officers
the
plaintiff obtained
the
usual order for discovery of docu-
ments as a preliminary step in
the
proceedings.
The
defendants objected to produce certain documents which
the
plaintiff wished to inspect
and
resisted
the
order for
discovery. The documents which
they
objected to making
available
to
the
plaintiff were notebooks issued to
them
by
the
chief constable
and
headed "County Borough of W.
Police general notes, reports, enquiries, statements".
The
defendants
put
in
an
affidavit to this
effect:
"The
last-
mentioned documents consist solely of memoranda which
will be referred to
by
us or
any
of us only when
it
is necessary
for us or
any
of us
to
refresh our memories on
matters
in
question in this suit".
The
plaintiff applied to
the
judge
for inspection of
the
notebooks
and
the
judge ordered
inspection, there being nothing in this affidavit which
entitled
the
defendants
to
refuse
to
produce
the
notebooks.
But
the
defendants appealed against
this
order
to
the
Court of Appeal (1948, 1 AU E.R. 907)
and
put
in a further
affidavit averring
that
"the
documents relate solely
to
our
own case
and
not
to
the
case of
the
plaintiffs,
and
do
not
in
any
way
tend
to
support or prove
their
case or
to
im-
peach our own case".
The
Court of Appeal (Somervell
and
Cohen,
L.JJ.)
held
that,
assuming
that
the
notebooks
related solely to
the
defendants' case,
the
defendants were
entitled to resist
the
application for their production
and
the
defendants' objection was upheld. The first affidavit
did
not
disclose a sufficient reason for non-production
but
the
second did.
8111
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