Damian Dodsworth v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Davis-White |
| Judgment Date | 14 March 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] EWHC 653 (Admin) |
| Date | 14 March 2019 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/3344/2018 |
[2019] EWHC 653 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
LEEDS DISTRICT REGISTRY
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Leeds Combined Court Centre
1 Oxford Row
Leeds LS1 3BG
HIS HONOUR JUDGE Davis-White QC
(SITTING AS A JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT)
Case No: CO/3344/2018
Case No: CO/3345/2018
Ms Pamela Rose (instructed by Wheldon Law) for the Claimants/Appellants
Mr Oliver Thorne (instructed by Legal Services, West Yorkshire Constabulary) for the Defendant/Respondent
SUPPLEMENTAL JUDGMENT
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.
HIS HONOUR JUDGE Davis-White QC (SITTING AS A JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT)
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His Honour Judge Davis-White QC:
This is my supplemental judgment to that which I handed down on 20 February 2019 in these two appeals by way of case stated, [2019] EWHC 330 (Admin) and [2019] EWHC 331 (Admin) (the “February Judgment”). A draft of the February Judgment was provided to counsel in the case on Monday 18 February 2019, in advance of the formal hand down, pursuant to CPR PD 40E. The date given for the proposed handing down was Wednesday 20 February 2019 at 10am, with attendance not being required. Proposed corrections were received from Mr Thorne as requested. The February Judgment was handed down at 10 am on 20 February 2019. At about 18:20 that evening an email was received by the Administrative Court offices in Leeds from Ms Rose. That said (among other things):
“I am sorry but I did not see this email in time to submit corrections or I would have acknowledged your email as a matter of courtesy.
One point in particular is that The Judge has failed to raise the issue of the expert seeing the garden in August or my submissions relating to that and the amendment”
In light of Ms Rose's email I gave directions for further skeleton arguments addressing the issue of the points it was said that I had failed to deal with. Ms Rose lodged a skeleton argument over eight pages long. Mr Thorne replied with a skeleton argument four and a half pages long. Miss Rose then made further submissions by way of annotations to Mr Thorne's skeleton argument. On the circulation of this judgment in draft pursuant to CPR PD 40E I received a further three pages of submissions from Mr Rose. I am grateful to both counsel for the submissions. By her submissions Ms Rose raises a number of issues. In this judgement I deal solely with those issues which I consider to be necessary to clarify the February Judgment. I do not deal with points which appear to seek to re-argue points that I have already dealt with in the February Judgment. Unless the context otherwise requires, references to paragraph numbers below are to the paragraph numbers of the February Judgment.
Paragraph 5
Ms Rose, on instructions, sets out in her recent skeleton argument details with regard to alleged service on the Chief Constable of the draft Statement of Case. I do not have proper evidence on the points. As far as I can see they are not agreed. In any event, the underlying point that the relevant process under Criminal Procedure Rules 2015 part 35 seems to have gone wrong remains. It was not and is not necessary for the purposes of the February Judgment for me to determine and apportion responsibility.
In the February Judgement I stated that the Amended Case Stated was defective because (among other things) the summary of the relevant contentions of the parties are limited to the contentions of the appellant (and in large part, those on the appeal rather than those before the Crown Court). Ms Rose correctly points out that I may have overstated the position. For example, in the case of the appeal of Mr Graham-Burrows, the Amended Case Stated states “The case was opened on the basis that at the time of seizure the garden was in an appalling state causing health concerns”. The contentions of the Chief Constable were clearly considerably more than these.
Ms Rose also invites me to make clear that the provision of the Amended Case Stated, in each appeal, followed the referral back of the matter for amendment of the respective Cases Stated. The referral back, by this Court, for amendment was on the basis that they did not provide the details required by Criminal Procedure Rules Part 35. In referring the matters back, Lane J indicated that “the Appellant's draft would appear to constitute a suitable basis for the amended case stated”. The original cases stated were not based, or heavily based,...
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