Watson v Chief Constable of Humberside Police 2025
Two police officers, CR and CO, attended at W’s address following a call made by W himself stating his intention to take a knife and cut his throat as a result of abuse which he had received while walking home earlier that evening.
CR and CO alleged that upon arrival W attempted to attack them with the knife. CR deployed his taser and double palm struck W whilst CO kicked W to dislodge the knife. W was arrested under suspicion of committing affray and charged with possessing a bladed article in a public place, which was dismissed due to not being in a public place and an offence under section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 of which he was acquitted. Given that W had not even been charged with affray and had been acquitted of the section 4 offence, the respondent did not advance a positive case that W had been guilty of any offence.
W’s neighbour, N, witnessed the incident and provided a statement in which said that the officers did not try to speak to W at all and that they just acted straight away.
The witnesses, N, CO and CR agreed on several aspects of the incident, but disagreed on others. In particular, W’s evidence was that he only held the knife to his own throat and that he did not threaten the officers with it. N said that he did not see W waving the knife around, lunging at anybody or pointing the knife at anyone. By contrast, CR and CO’s evidence was in line with the case advanced in the amended defence.
W made claims against CR and CO for assault and battery or false imprisonment which were dismissed by the court. Although the recorder found CR and CO to not be reliable witnesses, they found that the arrest was lawful as it was necessary to prevent harm and their acts of reasonable force were in self-defence. W’s further claim of malicious prosecution was dismissed as the recorder found there was no malice in relation to the prosecution of W. The recorder found that W’s actions did amount to an affray.
W appealed on five grounds:
Ground 1: the recorder was wrong because his approach was impermissible in the adversarial system of justice. He invented and imputed to the officers a different belief from that which they claimed to have had and he permitted the respondent to defend the case on facts which might, in other circumstances, have been the case, rather than on what the respondent said had happened.
Ground 2: the recorder erred in his approach by failing to recognise the principle that, in the tort of trespass to the person, the burden is on the defendant to justify the battery and the imprisonment of the claimant.
Ground 3: the recorder was wrong to find that the officers subjectively thought that the claimant was threatening them and/or that they had objectively reasonable grounds for their respective suspicion/belief.
Ground 4: the recorder was wrong to find that there was a reasonable and proper cause for the charge of affray as it was prosecuted.
Ground 5: in light of the other grounds of appeal, the recorder was wrong in quantifying malicious prosecution and failing to award exemplary damages.
Held
Application allowed. Appeal upheld.
In relation to ground 1, the Recorder had been wrong in finding that W had been committing the offence of affray, a matter which the respondent had not even alleged; and secondly the Recorder had been wrong in finding, on a ground not pleaded by the respondent, that CR and CO had:
(a) suspected that W had committed an offence;
b) believed that it had been necessary to arrest W to prevent him causing injury to them;
(c) believed that W had been threatening them; and
d) acted in self-defence.
b) believed that it had been necessary to arrest W to prevent him causing injury to them;
(c) believed that W had been threatening them; and
d) acted in self-defence.
Consequently, the recorder was wrong to dismiss W’s claims for assault and battery and false imprisonment. The court emphasised that findings regarding suspicion and belief must adhere to the actual grounds relied upon by CR and CO, as pleaded, which were discredited by the Recorder's own analysis of the evidence. Judges make such findings within the framework of the pleaded issues. In the present case, it is concluded that the recorder went beyond the pleaded issues.
Grounds 2 and 3 were dismissed due to ground 1 being considered.
In respect of the dismissal of the malicious prosecution claim (ground 4), it was held that it was not open to find that the Recorder had erred in so doing, in circumstances where there was no ground of appeal concerning two of the elements of the tort of malicious prosecution (namely whether CR and CO were to be regarded as the claimant's prosecutors; and whether CR and CO had acted with malice). It was not wrong to dismiss the claim for malicious prosecution.
Given the conclusion to ground 4, ground 5 is not necessary to be addressed.
View the full case document here, with links to related legislation and similar cases.
