European Court of Human Rights
| DOI | 10.1177/002201830206600306 |
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| Subject Matter | European Court of Human Rights |
European
Court
of
Human
Rights
Terrorist Suspects and Detention
O'Hara vUnited Kingdom (App. No. 37555/97, 16 October 2001)
The applicant, a
prominent
member
of Sinn Fein, was arrested by
the
RUC on suspicion of involvement in
the
terrorist
murder
of Kurt Konig
in 1985. The suspicion against
him
originated from four separate Special
Branch informants,
who
had
given accurate information in
the
past;
the
information
had
been
passed
down
achain of police officers
to
the
arresting officer. The applicant was
taken
to Castlereagh detention
centre,
where
he was held for 6 days
and
13 hours,
and
during
that
time
he was interviewed 34 times, making no
comment
on each occasion. He
was eventually released
without
charge,
and
began proceedings for
damages for alleged assault, illegal seizure of documents, false imprison-
ment
and
unlawful arrest.
In
relation to the lawfulness of
the
arrest,
the
High Court of Northern Ireland found
that
there
had
been
reasonable
grounds for suspicion
that
the
applicant was involved in terrorist of-
fences,
and
so
the
arrest was justified
under
the
then
s.
12(l)(b)
of
the
Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984. The Court of
Appeal agreed, finding
that
reasonable suspicion could be derived from
information provided to the arresting officer by a superior officer at a
briefing, even
though
the arresting officer
had
not
given evidence in
court as to the grounds for his suspicion against the applicant. The House
of Lords dismissed an appeal, finding
that
it was
not
necessary for
an
arresting officer to possess all
the
information which
had
led his
superiors
to
form
the
decision to arrest,
but
that
he
must
have sufficient
information to form reasonable grounds for his
own
suspicion. A rea-
sonable suspicion could be founded
upon
information given
anony-
mously, or on information which later proves to be incorrect. Per Lord
Steyn:
...
a mere request to arrest without any further information by an equal
ranking
officer,
or a junior
officer,
is incapable of amounting to reasonable
grounds for the necessary suspicion.How can the badge ofsuperior officers
and the fact that he gave an order make a difference?
...
In practice it
follows
that a constable must be given some basis for a request to arrest
someone under a provision such as section I2( I), e.g. a report from an
informer.
The applicant alleged the following breaches of the European Conven-
tion on
Human
Rights: Article 5(1), in
that
the
decision to arrest
had
not
been
based
upon
reasonable grounds; Article 5(3), in
that
he
had
not
been
brought promptly (or indeed at all) before ajudge after his arrest;
and Article 5(5) in
that
he
had had
no opportunity to obtain compensa-
tion for his arrest
and
detention.
Section 12(1)(b)
and
(4) of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary
Provisions) Act 1984 provided:
243
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