Eastenders Cash and Carry Plc v South Western Magistrates' Court
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Sullivan,Mr Justice Owen |
| Judgment Date | 22 March 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] EWHC 937 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No.CO/7085/2010 |
| Date | 22 March 2011 |
[2011] EWHC 937 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Sullivan
Mr Justice Owen
Case No.CO/7085/2010
Mr M Glover and MS S Haj-Jabbari appeared on behalf of the Claimant
The Defendant was unrepresented
Introduction
In this claim for judicial review the claimant challenges the lawfulness of two decisions by the defendant (a) to grant a search warrant to the interested party in respect of the claimant's premises; and (b) to refuse, at least initially, to disclose the information that was laid before the defendant by the interested party in order to obtain that warrant.
Fcatual background
The information was laid before the defendant on 23 February 2010 by Detective Constable Evans. A search warrant was sought in respect of the claimant's premises in Barking. The information described the alleged offences as:
"Possession of a firearm, contrary to section 46 of Firearms Act 1968".
The information given on oath was:
"Recent source intelligence suggests that males working as security guards at the above premises are armed with firearms. These firearms are either kept about their person or within the premises. Application is therefore made for a warrant to enter, search and seize any firearms, component parts, and ammunition".
A manuscript note was added to the information to this effect:
"Unregistered source but information corroberated by other officers".
The warrant was executed on 26 February 2010. In the event, no firearms were found and no arrests were made.
When the claimant requested a copy of the information laid before the defendant, the defendant initially refused the application. However, after a hearing on 26 April 2010, at which the defendant heard representations from the interested party but not the claimant, the defendant ordered disclosure of the information, which was eventually received by the claimant on 2 June 2010. The defendant's ruling that the information should be disclosed had been received by the claimant on 6 May 2010.
The claim form seeking judicial review of the two decisions referred to above was filed on 25 June 2010. Since the information sought by the claimant had, by that time, been provided, it is difficult to see what useful purpose could possibly have been served by the claim for judicial review in respect of the second decision. An application for judicial review might possibly have been justified if the initial refusal was evidence of some general misapprehension on the part of the defendant as to the entitlement of persons in the position of the claimant in the present case to be given copies of informations on which decisions to issue search warrants in respect of their premises had been based. However, it was plain from the ruling that this was not the case.
The interested party had objected to the disclosure of the information on PII grounds. The defendant arranged a hearing to enable the interested party to make representations so that she could decide whether the interested party's PII grounds were made out. In her ruling, dated 26 April 2010, the defendant said:
"I have considered the case law with which I have been provided and noted the representations made by the police in respect of the disclosure of the information in full. I take as a starting point the position that the complainant in this case, Eastenders Barking Limited, is entitled to have sight of the information that persuaded me to issue the warrant in the first place. I carried out the appropriate balancing exercise and considered whether the public interest demands that I withhold the information or any part of it. I am not persuaded that there is anything in the information which I received that would lead to the source of the information being identified, and thus put at risk. The company in question is a large organisation, which means there must be a large pool of potential sources of information relating to the company. The information presented makes only general reference to the source of the intelligence used by police. My view is that the information should be disclosed in full".
Thus, it can be seen that the defendant adopted the correct starting point. That is to say that the claimant was entitled to see the information unless the public interest demanded that some or all of the material relied upon should not be disclosed. The defendant then proceeded to resolve the issue in the claimant's favour.
In these circumstances it is difficult to see what possible complaint can now be made. There was clearly some confusion as to the purpose of the hearing and whether or not the claimant was required to attend. Having heard Mr Glover's submissions, it seems to me that the complaint now boils down to a complaint that the claimant was in attendance at the court but was not called on on 26 April 2010. Had the defendant's ruling been adverse to the claimant on that date, there would clearly have been considerable force in that complaint but, since the ruling was not adverse to the claimant and the defendant was able to rule effectively in the claimant's favour without calling for any representations from the claimant, the challenge to the second decision is, in my judgment, wholly academic. That position was, or should have been, clear to the claimant as from 6 May 2010, well before the claim was filed.
For my part, therefore, I would reject so much of the claim as relates to the second decision on the basis that the complaint advanced is wholly academic.
Turning to the first decision, that is to say the decision to issue the search warrant, section 46(1) of the Firearms Act 1968 provides:
"If a justice of the peace … is satisfied by information on oath that there is reasonable grounds for suspecting (a) that an offence relevant for the purposes of this section has been, is being, or is about to be committed; or (b) that in connection with a firearm or ammunition there is a danger to...
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