Trevor Williamson v Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Kerr |
| Judgment Date | 03 September 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] UKPC 29 |
| Date | 03 September 2014 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No 0039 of 2012 |
| Court | Privy Council |
[2014] UKPC 29
Lady Hale
Lord Kerr
Lord Clarke
Lord Wilson
Lord Reed
Appeal No 0039 of 2012
Privy Council
From the Court of Appeal of The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Appellant
Anand Beharrylal Frances Ridout
(Instructed by Yaseen Ahmed)
Respondent
Alan Newman QC Tom Richards
(Instructed by Charles Russell LLP)
Heard on 18 June 2014
On 22 July 2004, at the end of her working day, Joanne Lewis returned to her home at 6 Westbury Lane, Belmont, North Trinidad. She found that her house had been burgled. She reported the burglary to the police. They interviewed Ms Lewis's neighbour, Richard Thompson. He told them that he had seen two people removing items from Ms Lewis's home and placing them in a car. Mr Thompson had been sufficiently exercised by what he had seen to note the registration number of the car, HAW 6265. The first letter of that number, 'H', denoted that it was a taxi and police were quickly able to trace it to its owner, Kevin Lijertwood. He was able to tell police that on 22 July, the vehicle was being used by Mr Williamson to ply his trade as a taxi driver.
This information led to Mr Williamson being detained at his home on the evening of 28 July. He was taken to Belmont police station. He was interviewed there and gave an account of having taken a fare to Ms Lewis's home. He had been told by the man who had hired him that he had experienced problems with his family and was moving out. Although he did not enter the house, Mr Williamson accepted that he had helped to carry a number of household items to the taxi. At some stage, probably during the early hours of 29 July, Mr Williamson accompanied police to a house in Darceuil Lane to which he claimed to have delivered the man who had hired the taxi. That house was searched but neither the man who had allegedly hired the taxi nor anything belonging to Ms Lewis was found.
On the following day, 30 July 2004, Mr Williamson was formally interviewed by police officers and made a written statement. In it he said that he had been plying the taxi for hire in the Belmont area when he was stopped by a person whom he did not know. He was hired to do a private job which involved "moving some things". He described going with the fare to Westbury Lane, collecting household items there and then taking him to the house at Darceuil Lane. Later on the same day at the police station Mr Thompson identified Mr Williamson as the person who had helped to load items from Ms Lewis' house into the taxi. Thereafter he was charged with housebreaking and larceny and taken before the Magistrates' Court where he was remanded in custody. He was granted bail on 11 October 2004.
The appellant appeared before the Magistrates' Court no fewer than sixteen times following his initial remand. On all but three of those, the prosecutor, Police Constable Caldeira, failed to appear and no explanation was given for his non-appearance. Eventually, on 24 August 2005, following yet another failure by the prosecutor to appear, the magistrate dismissed the charge against Mr Williamson. On the 10 occasions that Mr Williamson appeared in court while in custody on remand, the police officer appeared only twice.
On 21 August 2006 Mr Williamson began proceedings against the state for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. After a trial before Tiwary-Reddy J in June and July 2007 his claim was dismissed. Reasons for the dismissal of the claim were given in a written judgment dated 3 July 2008.
The claim for malicious prosecution was dismissed, the judge holding that the police officer had reasonable and probable cause for prosecuting Mr Williamson. She also found that there was no direct evidence of malice and, since a lack of reasonable and probable cause had not been established, it could not be inferred. On the wrongful arrest claim, the judge set out the circumstances of the police investigation of the burglary, and held that there was ample evidence for the police to suspect Mr Williamson of having committed the crime of housebreaking and larceny. He had been lawfully arrested, therefore. And since he had been lawfully arrested, there was lawful authority to justify his imprisonment. His claim for compensation for false imprisonment was therefore also dismissed.
The appellant appealed Tiwary-Reddy J's judgment to the Court of Appeal. On 27 July 2011, the Court of Appeal (Kangaloo, Jamadar and Yorke-Soo Hon JJA) dismissed the appeal. The court found that Mr Williamson should have been charged as a secondary participant in a joint enterprise to break and enter Ms Lewis's premises rather than as a principal. There was no evidence that he had entered the house. It was held, therefore, that there was no reasonable and probable cause for the prosecution. The court went on to find, however, that there was no direct evidence of malice nor could it be inferred. It therefore dismissed Mr Williamson's appeal against the dismissal of his malicious prosecution claim.
Before the Board, Mr Beharrylal, who did not appear for Mr Williamson in the courts below, presented submissions of great skill and tenacity on his behalf. He argued that since there was such a glaring absence of reasonable and probable cause to prosecute Mr Williamson, malice on the part of the prosecutor should be inferred. The evidence to support the charge was so plainly inadequate, Mr Beharrylal submitted, that by persisting in it, the prosecutor must be regarded as having been actuated by malice. He suggested that the circumstances of the entire incident, as revealed by the police inquiries and Mr Williamson's ready co-operation were clearly indicative of innocence. These circumstances, when taken together with the apparent reluctance of the police to prosecute by their repeated failure to attend court, could only mean that they had no belief in any real possibility of Mr Williamson's being convicted.
In this connection, Mr Beharrylal referred the Board to the 2000 Code of Practice for prosecutors for England and Wales which, as the case of Panday v The Attorney General HCA 2525 of 2003 confirmed, was the code which was applied by prosecutors in Trinidad and Tobago at the relevant time. That code required prosecutors to be satisfied that there was a realistic prospect of conviction before proceeding with a prosecution – see para 14. Counsel submitted that it was impossible that the prosecutor in the present case could have been so satisfied and that the inference that this was a malicious prosecution was therefore irresistible.
Although false imprisonment does not appear to have been pursued as a separate head of claim in the Court of Appeal, Mr Beharrylal contended that it remained a viable element of Mr Williamson's appeal. He accepted that, although the police officer's evidence about arrest was, at best, confused, a valid arrest had in fact taken place at Mr Williamson's home on 28 July 2004. He also accepted that, as soon as Mr Williamson had been charged and taken before a court on 30 July, no question of false imprisonment could thereafter arise. Counsel submitted, however, that inquiries into the matter were effectively completed when Mr Williamson had given his account to the police on late 28 July or early on the 29 th, certainly no later than when he had taken them to Darceuil Lane, and that the respondent had failed to justify Mr Williamson's detention between the conclusion of the inquiries and Mr Williamson's having been taken before the Magistrates' Court. Irrespective of the outcome of the malicious prosecution claim, therefore, Mr Williamson was entitled to compensation for that period which Mr Beharrylal put at some 36 hours. He calculated that this period began at 11.59 pm on 28 July and ended with Mr Williamson's having been charged at 1.30 pm on 30 July.
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