R v Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, ex parte Ince
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE MEGAW,LORD JUSTICE SCARMAN |
| Judgment Date | 20 July 1973 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1973] EWCA Civ J0720-5 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 20 July 1973 |
[1973] EWCA Civ J0720-5
The Master of the Rolls (Lord Denning)
Lord Justice Megaw and
Lord Justice Scarman
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Appeal by applicant Lynda Ceciele Ince from judgment of the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division on 17th November 1972.
Mr. FRANCIS PURCHAS, Q. C., and Mr. W. L. MONRO DAVIES (instructed by Messrs. Russell Jones & Walker) appeared on behalf of the Appellant Applicant.
Mr. R. A. GATEHOUSE, Q. C., and Mr. GORDON SLYNN (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Respondents.
It was soon after midnight on 14th/15th February, 1971, in the Bloomsbury area of London. Men were seen acting suspiciously near the headquarters of the Territorial Army in Handel Street. It looked as if they were about to break in and steal arms and ammunition. Not for the first time. The premises had previously been broken into by persons in search of firearms. A bomb had been exploded near there. So on this night, the police were on the alert. Immediately a radio message was sent out calling all the police cars: "Suspects breaking into the Territorial Army Depot, Handel Street." This message was picked up by a police car driven by a young policeman, Michael Ince, age 25. It was the first time he had driven this car on duty. With him was a police inspector, John Robinson. Hearing the message, the Inspector said: "That's a good shout". That meant: "Quick, we must get there as soon as we can." They ware in Great Russell Street at the time. Ince did as he was told. He drove down Coptic Street and into New Oxford Street. He was going 20 miles an hour. At the junction with Museum Street, the lights showed red: but they were about to change. Ince, spurred on by the urgency, shot the light. Hen may, or may not, have looked to see if it was safe to do so. It was not. Another police car had also heard the call. It too was answering it, making quickly for the scene, coming down Museum Street, crossing the lights at green, just before they changed. The two cars collided. Police Constable Ince was killed. Neither car got to the Territorial Army Headquarters. Others did, Then the anticlimax. They found no one trying to break into the premises in Handel Street. There was only a man in the street trying to steal from parking meters.
Nine days later P. C. Ince's young widow gave birth to their son. She will, of course, be entitled to a pension as he waskilled on duty. But she claims that she is entitled to compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, which would give her somewhat more. If she recovers under the scheme, she will have to give credit for four-fifths of her pension.
On 10th March, 1971, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board rejected the widow's claim. They said that she was not entitled to compensation under the scheme. She sought to reverse the Board's award on the ground that it was erroneous in law on the face of it. So she applied to the Divisional Court for an order of certiorari. The Divisional Court refused it. She now appeals to this Court.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme was promoted by the Government without statutory sanction. It was done under the Royal Prerogative. The object was to make compensation to the victims of crimes of violence. The compensation was to be made ex gratia out of Government funds. It was to be administered by a Board called the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. Some lawyers thought that such a Board making ex gratia payments was not subject to the supervision of the Courts of law. But, by a decision of the first importance, the Divisional Court in 1967 held that the Board was amenable to the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court, see Lain's case (1967) 2 Q. B. 365: and that decision has not been called in question before us. The discussion has been simply whether or not the award of the Board was erroneous in point of law.
The principal provision of the scheme is paragraph 5, which says:-
"The Board will entertain applications for ex gratia payment of compensation in any case where….the deceased sustained …. personal injury directly attributable to a crime ofviolence (including arson and poisoning) or to an arrest or attempted arrest of an offender or suspected offender, or to the prevention or attempted prevention of an offence or to the giving of help to any constable who is engaged in arresting or attempting to arrest offender or suspected offender or preventing or attmpting to prevent an offence."
Clause 8 says that: "Traffic offences will be excluded from the scheme, except when therehas been a delibarate attempt to run the victim down."
It is plain that police officers come within the scheme. The scheme contemplates that they may be injured (i) whilst arresting or attempting to arrest an offender, and (ii) whilst preventing or attempting to prevent an offence. The Board in their award interpreted the scheme in a very restricted manner. They said, as to arrest: "An attempt to arrest does not start until the suspected offender is located and the chase has begun." They said, as to prevention, that: "Police officers are continuously engaged in the prevention of crime but, in order to bring themselves within the scheme, they must show that they were present at the scene of the crime and were taking active steps to prevent its commission."
The Lord Chief Justice thought that the Board misdirected themselves in their award. I agree with him. The Board themselves before us did not seek to support the propositions they set out in the award, but they put forward other propositions which were just as restrictive. They submitted that, in order to come within the "arrest" clause, there must be proved to have been an actual arrest or an actual attempted arrest. Short of this, it was said that no compensation could be given. They further submitted that, in order to come within the "prevention"clause, there must be proved to have been an actual prevention or an actual attempted prevention of an offence that was actually imminent and in fact about to take place. So if men had actually been breaking into the premises and had been convicted, the widow would have been entitled to compensation. The Board so held in a case in August 1968. But, as there was in fact no breaking into the premises, she was not.
I do not think the scheme should be interpreted in so narrow a fashion. I Take the clause about prevention or attempted prevention of an offence. It cannot be necessary that an offence should actually have been committed. If it has been prevented, it never has been committed, and never will be committed. The words must cover an offence which it is anticipated may be committed unless prevented. This anticipation must be because of something the police officer has seen himself, or of some information that he has received. The information may be accurate or inaccurate; it may be mistaken; it may even be false: but, if the police officer honestly believes that an offence is about to take place and he himself takes action to prevent it, then his action comes within the words: "…the prevention or attempted prevention of an offence." Test it by this very case: Suppose that the message received by the police officers had been true. That is to say, suppose that the Territorial Army Headquarters was in fact being attacked by marauders, and the police on the spot sent out the radio message calling for help. No one could doubt that the injury to P. C. Ince would come within the scheme, provided that it was "directly attributable" to the attack on the Headquarters. Now, as it happened, the message was a mistake. No one was in fact attacking the headquarters. It was only a man breaking open a parking meter. But P. C. Ince was not to know that. His actionwas prompted by the reasonable belief that the message was correct. His claim to compensation should be tested in the light of the situation as it appeared to him at the time, and his claim, or rather his widow's claim, should not be taken away by the mere circumstance that the message was afterwards discovered to be a mistake.
Take another case. Suppose you see a man aiming a gun at another. You honestly believe that he is about to commit an offence. You take steps to stop him. You knock the gun out of his hand. In that situation, you can properly be said to "attempt to prevent the commission of an offence." Yet you may be mistaken about his intention. The gun may not be loaded. He may be doing it to frighten. He may even be doing it for fun. Yet, you have attempted to prevent the commission of an offence. In short, the "attempt" is the product of your own state of mind, and not of the actual situation as it exists in fact.
I ask myself: what was P. C. Ince's state of mind here, when he received the radio message? He had good reason to believe that an attack was being made on the Territorial Army Headquarters. He might well think - if he had time to think - that police officers were attempting to thwart the attack: and that they were attempting to arrest the offenders, or to prevent the offence being committed. He was engaged in supporting them in that attempt. That state of mind is sufficient in my mind to bring him within the scheme, so long as the injury which he suffered was "directly attributable" to the state of affairs.
I come then to the question: Was the injury to P. C. Ince, and his consequent death, "directly attributable" to that state of affairs. The Board said that the death of P. C. Ince...
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