PI Brief Update

Andrew Reynolds v Chief Constable of Kent Police [2024] EWHC 2487 (KB) - Andrew Ratomski, Temple Garden Chambers

17/10/24. Date of judgment: 2 October 2024.

Mr Reynolds was found by HHJ Brown sitting with a jury at Canterbury County Court to have been falsely imprisoned by Kent Police for a little under six days and to have been assaulted by them. However, the judge also found Mr Reynolds to have been fundamentally dishonest and pursuant to section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 (“the 2015 Act”) dismissed his claim for damages.

Facts

Mr Reynolds was arrested by four police officers on 20 December 2015, allegedly for making threats to kill, and was taken to Tonbridge Police Station by police van and later to Pembury Hospital where he was treated for a fracture to his L3 vertebrae over six days. He was later found not guilty of two offences of assaulting a police officer with intent to resist lawful arrest. Following the jury returning its verdict, the judge found fundamental dishonesty, which had been pleaded in the Defence, made out and concluded that the Claimant had “lied about each matter on which the burden of proof rested on him”.

The Appeal 

There were in total eight grounds of appeal and this note focuses only on the judge’s key ruling to over-turn the fundamental dishonesty finding in respect of the false imprisonment claim. The decision is a good example of the circumstances in which an appeal court will allow a party to pursue a ground of appeal on an issue that was not taken before the lower court and indeed, in this case, to succeed on that ground.

Ground three was that the first-instance judge was wrong to find that any dishonesty in relation to the cause of the Claimant’s back injury or use of force against him was...

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