Police Service of Northern Ireland v Owen McCaughey and Pat Grew
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judge | Kerr LCJ |
| Judgment Date | 14 January 2005 |
| Neutral Citation | [2005] NICA 1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Northern Ireland) |
| Date | 14 January 2005 |
1
Neutral Citation No. [2005] NICA 1
Ref:
KERC5174
Judgment: approved by the Court for handing down
Delivered:
14/01/2005
(subject to editorial corrections)
IN HER MAJESTY’S COURT OF APPEAL IN NORTHERN IRELAND
---------
BETWEEN:-
POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND
Appellant
and
OWEN McCAUGHEY & PAT GREW
Respondent
---------
Before Kerr LCJ, Campbell LJ and Weir J
---------
KERR LCJ
Introduction
[1] This is an appeal from the judgment of Weatherup J in which he held that
the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland was under a
continuing duty by virtue of section 8 of the Coroner’s Act (Northern Ireland)
1959 and article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights to furnish to
the coroner conducting an inquest into the deaths of Martin McCaughey and
Desmond Grew certain documents generated by the police investigation into
their deaths.
2
Background
[2] Martin McCaughey and Desmond Grew were killed by soldiers on 9
October 1990. To date no inquest has been held into their deaths. There have
been various reasons for the delay in the holding of this inquest, the latest of
which is the issue of provision of information by the police to the coroner.
That is the central issue arising in this appeal.
[3] In October 2002 the fathers of the deceased applied for judicial review of
decisions of the Chief Constable and the coroner concerning the disclosure of
documents for the inquests into the death of the deceased. The judicial
review centred on the disclosure to the coroner of three sets of documents in
the possession of the police. The first of these was a copy of the police report
prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The second was the
direction given by the DPP that there was to be no prosecution. The third set
of documents sought was unredacted copies of intelligence reports gathered
by the police. The coroner had already received redacted copies of these
statements from the police.
[4] In his judgment of 20 January 2004 Weatherup J held that the first
document should be provided to the coroner. He concluded that section 8 of
the 1959 Act and article 2 of ECHR required that it be disclosed as there was
no confidentiality attaching to it and it was potentially relevant to the inquest.
The learned judge considered that disclosure of such a document would not
deter a police officer from being frank in the report or a member of the public
from assisting police investigations. The judge refused the application in
relation to the direction of no prosecution on the basis that this amounted to
an attempt to discover the reasons that no prosecution had been directed.
Since, per the decision of this court in Re Jordan’s Application [2003] NICA 54,
the DPP did not have to give reasons for a decision not to prosecute where the
decision was taken before the coming into force of the Human Rights Act
1998, and the decision not to prosecute in this case was made in 1993, this
document did not require to be disclosed. In relation to the third document,
Weatherup J held that, as with the police report, there was a duty to disclose
the unredacted copies of intelligence reports under section 8 and Article 2. He
was influenced to this conclusion by the consideration that the coroner
believed that the unredacted reports were potentially relevant.
[5] In the course of the hearing before Weatherup J, as before this court, one of
the principal contentions of the Chief Constable was that the duty on the
police under section 8 was confined to the provision to the coroner of such
information as was available in the immediate aftermath of the death and that
there was no continuing duty under section 8 to furnish information obtained
subsequently. The judge rejected that argument in paragraph 13 of his
judgment in the following terms:-
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