Esengul Woodcock v The Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Ritchie |
| Judgment Date | 09 May 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] EWHC 1062 (KB) |
| Docket Number | APPEAL REF: QA-2022-BHM-000026 |
| Court | King's Bench Division |
[2023] EWHC 1062 (KB)
Mr Justice Ritchie
APPEAL REF: QA-2022-BHM-000026
DISTRICT REF: BM10131A
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
BIRMINGHAM DISTRICT REGISTRY
ON APPEAL FROM
THE COUNTY COURT SITTING IN LEICESTER
CLAIM NO E77YM442
Mr Charles Davey (instructed by Capital Lawyers) for the Appellant/Claimant
Mr Matthew Holdcroft (instructed by DWF) for the Respondent/Defendant
Hearing date: 25 April 2023
APPROVED JUDGMENT
The appeal
This is an appeal from a judgment delivered by HHJ Murdoch on 19.4.2021 after a 5 day trial in January 2021 (by video), in which the Judge dismissed the claim with costs.
By notice of appeal dated 9.9.2021 the Appellant seeks to overturn the judgment. Henceforth I shall call the Appellant “the Claimant” and the Respondent “the Defendant” or “the police” and the Claimant's husband or ex-husband “H”.
Permission to appeal was granted on the papers by me on 23.6.2022 with a direction to perfect the grounds of appeal and skeleton. Directions for the appeal were given by HHJ Kelly on 24.8.2022 and 6.12.2022.
Bundles and evidence
I had the following digital bundles: an appeal bundle and a joint authorities bundle. I also read the permission to appeal bundle. The bundle contained the draft judgment not the approved judgment. My comments on form below are therefore likely to be irrelevant because I suspect they were all tidied up in the approved judgment.
Overview
On 19.3.2015 the Claimant was leaving her home with her son, daughter and H and getting into her car, when she was viciously attacked by Riza Guzelyurt (RG) and stabbed at least 7 times in her chest and body. She was very seriously injured. Her children saw the attack. RG was convicted of attempted murder and imprisoned for life.
The Claimant sued the police for failing to warn her that RG was outside her house that morning and many other asserted failings (failing to protect her; failing to arrest RG; failing to cocoon her; failing to put officers outside her house all night; etc.). The Defendant denied liability asserting that the police owed the Claimant no duty of care, did not breach any duty which they might be found to have owed and did not cause the injury in any event.
The Judge made findings of fact which I shall summarise below and ruled that: (1) no duty of care was owed to the Claimant; (2) there was no breach of duty in any event; (3) the burden of proof on causation was not fulfilled by the Claimant on the evidence.
Issues
The main issue in the appeal is whether the Defendant had a duty to warn the Claimant after a neighbour made a 999 call and informed the Defendant of RG loitering outside the Claimant's house 12–13 minutes before the attack.
The grounds of appeal
The Claimant filed amended grounds of appeal dated 2.8.2022. There were 3 grounds with multiple sub-grounds.
Ground 1, Duty of Care: the Claimant asserted that Judge was wrong to reject a duty of care. The Claimant relied on: the long history of harassment and attacks by RG on her which were known by the police; the multiple arrests of RG and the bail conditions imposed on RG by the police; the termination of her affair with RG; the asserted fact that the Defendant had initiated a “cocoon” watch; the fact that the Police had flagged the Claimant's address; the fact that the Defendant had contacted the Claimant through her mobile phone previously, many times; the extensive manhunt effected by the Defendant on the 18 th–19th of March 2015; the fact that the Defendant would have used a helicopter if the weather had been better; the fact that the Defendant had agreed to provide comfort to the Claimant at her request by placing a police officer in a car outside her home after midnight on the 18th of March 2015 running into the early hours of the 19th of March. The Claimant asserted that those facts were sufficient to evidence that the Defendant had “assumed a duty of care” to protect the Claimant.
Separately, the Claimant asserted that the Judge was wrong to hold that the Defendant had no duty of care to warn the Claimant that RG was outside her house both before and after a 999 call which was received by the Defendant at 07.32 am on 19 th March 2015 from a neighbour, reporting that RG was loitering outside and had threatened to kill her. That call occurred 13–14 minutes before she walked out of her house and was stabbed.
Ground 2, breach: The Claimant asserted that the Judge was wrong to fail to find a breach of duty by the Defendant. Nine allegations are made to justify this ground: failing to discuss with the Claimant her movements before she left home that morning; failing to advise the Claimant to contact the police before she left home; failing to warn the Claimant on her mobile phone that RG was outside; failing to advise the Claimant to remain at home until they arrested RG; failing to inform the Claimant that they had not yet arrested RG; failing to arrange a cocoon watch so the Claimant's neighbours had contact details and kept a look out for RG (this contradicted the assertions in Ground 1); failing to brief PS Randall fully as to the history and failing to station police officers outside the Claimant's home until she physically left home to go to work and deliver the kids to school. In addition the Claimant asserted the Judge was wrong to find that calling the Claimant to warn her after the neighbour's 999 report was not required and was not within the remit of the Defendant's staff. The Claimant relied on the IPCC conclusions after their investigation of the police conduct and the lack of defence evidence on the point. Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the grounds of appeal were already subsumed within the rest of ground two in my judgment.
Ground 3, causation. The Claimant challenged the Judge's findings on causation. The Claimant relied on three matters: firstly the assertion that causation was not on the list of agreed issues provided for a pre-trial review; secondly because the Judge failed to address five of the allegations of breach set out at paragraphs 4.1 to 4.5 of the grounds; thirdly because the Claimant asserted that it was “clear” that she would not have left home if she had been informed by the police that RG was outside and/or that he had not been arrested yet.
In response the Defendant submits that the Judge was correct; the arguments in the grounds of appeal have changed somewhat since the permission was granted; the actions and words of the police did not constitute a contract to provide protection, so no duty arose; the duty to warn was pleaded as part of a duty to keep the Claimant safe not on its own and that no Human Rights Act claim was raised. In the Defendant/Respondent's skeleton parts of the transcript of evidence were recited but no transcript was put into the appeal bundle. In one of two such excerpts the Claimant admitted that she had only been assaulted twice by RG and never with weapons. There was a transcript of the Claimant's evidence at trial in the bundle for the permission to appeal stage but that was omitted from the appeal bundle. I should make clear that I have read that transcript.
The judgment
The layout of the judgment is odd. There is no heading and there are no paragraph numbers. The Judge launched straight into a chronology using shorthand language which appears to be a summary of the police log.
Rulings on the law
The Judge's rulings on the law followed the summary of the police log. The Judge considered Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [1989] A.C. 53, but provided the wrong citation. He then quoted text from Lord Keith's judgment with no report page reference and no quote marks. By reading the report one can glean that part of the reference is from page 59. Some words are then omitted and the second part is again from the judgment of Lord Keith on pages 59–60. The Judge wrote this:
“ Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [1987] UKHL Lord Keith said;
There is no question that a police officer, like anyone else, may be liable in tort to a person who is injured as a direct result of his acts or omissions. So he may be liable in damages for assault, unlawful arrest, wrongful imprisonment and malicious prosecution, and also for negligence. Instances where liability for negligence has been established are Knightly v. Johns [1982] 1 W.L.R. 349 and Rig b y v. Chief Constable of Northamptonshire [1985] 1 W.L.R. 1242. Further, a police officer may be guilty of a criminal offence if he wilfully fails to perform a duty which he is bound to perform by common law or by statute: Reg. v. Dytham [1979] Q.B. 722, where a constable was convicted of wilful neglect of duty because, being present at the scene of a violent assault resulting in the death of the victim, he had taken no steps to intervene. (words omitted) …
But as that case shows, a chief officer of police has a wide discretion as to the manner in which the duty is discharged. It is for him to decide how available resources should be deployed, whether particular lines of inquiry should or should not be followed and even whether or not certain crimes should be prosecuted. It is only if his decision upon such matters is such as no reasonable chief officer of police would arrive at that someone with an interest to do so may be in a position to have recourse to judicial review. So the common law, while laying upon chief officers of police an obligation to enforce the law, makes no specific requirements as to the manner in which the obligation is to be discharged. That is not a situation where there can readily be inferred an intention of the common law to create a duty towards individual members of the public.”
This was not the ratio of Hill. The ratio...
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