Couple detained by Nottinghamshire police after child abuse allegations awarded £1 in damages on appeal

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] EWHC
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  England and Wales High Court
• Judge:
  Mr Justice Wall

Alan and Pamela Searson sought damages from the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Constabulary for false imprisonment, trespass to the person, and trespass to goods after their house was allegedly unlawfully searched. The defendant averred that any time spent in custody by the appellants was justified in law, and any injury proved to have been suffered by the second claimant, who alleged she was injured during her detention, was sustained in the course of lawful actions.

The appeal was heard by Mr Justice Wall in the King’s Bench Division of the High Court, with Sarah Hemingway appearing for the appellants and Matthew Holdcroft for the defendant.

Reasonable grounds to suspect

The appellants had three children together, A, B, and C. The eldest was A, born in 1992, and in 2011 she made allegations to Social Services that her parents had physically ill-treated her as a child. In 2012, B made further allegations which resulted in an investigation. Social Services spoke to C, who reported being happy at home although described her parents as “quite strict”. However, A made a report to the police in 2019 in which she said she had been abused on a daily basis between the ages of six and 10 and that C had told her she had seen the claimants putting poison in her then-boyfriend’s food on an occasion when he was staying with them.

An investigation was carried out by DC Percival, who spoke to A’s boyfriend and made other inquiries. It was not disputed that by the time she had concluded her investigations, she had reasonable grounds to suspect that the claimants had committed offences of child cruelty and malicious administration of poison. Against that background, the claimants were arrested on the morning of 26 March 2019 and taken to Mansfield Police Station.

Both claimants were released under investigation at 6:29pm the same day. The CPS decided that the evidential test for prosecution was not met, and no charges resulted from the investigation. The trial judge found that the arrests were lawful, and that the reviews of their detentions that took place at 4:01 and 4:15pm were properly carried out. Four grounds of appeal were presented in the claimants’ application, of which the judge allowed one, however the appellants sought to renew their application for leave in respect of the rejected grounds.

The ground on which permission to appeal was granted was that the judge was wrong in law to find that there had been no failure to comply with the requirements for conducting a lawful review of detention under section 40 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. In particular, the second claimant’s solicitor ought to have been consulted before the review was concluded. The defendant argued that, as the solicitor was involved in a police interview at the time of the review, he was not available to consult.

The appellants further maintained that the judge had been wrong to find that there had been reasonable grounds for their arrest, that their detention remained necessary once their house had been searched, and that the matters in the mind of the custody officer amounted to reasonable grounds to believe it was necessary to detain the Claimants following arrest, as opposed to conducting a voluntary interview.

Comprehensive assessment of evidence

In his decision, Wall J first dealt with the rejected grounds of appeal: “The parties helpfully provided the Judge with a note setting out the state of law as to the necessity of arresting a suspect. The note was accurate. He applied the law as set out in that note and made a comprehensive assessment of the evidence. He gave himself careful directions as to how to approach the evidence before doing so, such as reminding himself that police officers had no special status over civilians as witnesses and that he should not consider the evidence relating to child cruelty on the basis that there is no smoke without fire.”

He added: “He further found that it was properly open to [DC Percival] to approach the case on the basis that the Claimants might have been manipulative of C. This would be a justification for not accepting at face value anything exculpatory said by C about her parents. The Judge found that the arrests were objectively necessary to ensure that the Claimants did not collude before interview, to allow for a prompt and effective investigation, and to protect C.”

Considering the permitted ground of appeal, Wall J said: “It would damage a suspect’s rights to hold that a solicitor in interview was unavailable to consult on a review. It is the same police force which is engaged in questioning the suspect and is responsible for a proper view of his detention. It is within the lawful gift of the Inspector to postpone the review to allow for the solicitor’s participation in the process or, in an appropriate case, to ask that there be a short break in the interview to allow that participation to take place without delay.”

However, he concluded: “Allowing the appeal to this limited extent does not affect the claim for personal injury. The Second Claimant through her counsel accepted before me today that there is no evidential basis for a finding that any personal injury suffered by the Second Claimant, if there was any personal injury suffered by her, was sustained during the relatively short period that I have found she was unlawfully detained.”

Wall J therefore awarded damages in the nominal amount of £1, considering that had a lawful review been conducted the second appellant would have continued to be detained.