[2025] EWHC 2684 (KB)

This case concerns a failed fraud prosecution (with a single count alleging conspiracy to defraud certain Primary Care Trusts between 1^st February 2004 and 30^th September 2006), that was discontinued some seven weeks into a trial 16 years ago. There were 20,000 documents disclosed by the police in the criminal case and 83 witness statements. The Trial followed a very lengthy criminal investigation into events now twenty years ago. This judgment concerns the liability issues within a claim for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office.

The pleadings are extensive and the 29 witness statements descend into considerable detail including through cross-referencing to documents within a bundle which by the end of trial ran to well over 9,000 pages. The issues raised by the Claimants in pleadings and during questioning at trial have been wide ranging. At the outset of this judgment it is necessary to point out that the trial has not been a public inquiry to investigate all aspects of the failed prosecution; rather it has been a determination of the two causes of action alleged by the Claimants.

The Claimants were major shareholders, and directors, in a company (latterly known as Cawston Park Holdings Ltd) the business of which was to provide private sector mental health care to the National Health Service (“NHS”). A criminal charge relating to the running of that business was laid against the Claimants in February 2008: specifically, it was alleged that they had made charges to various Primary Care Trusts (“PCTs”) for “extra care” for certain patients placed at Cawston Park hospital despite no additional care or services being provided to those patients which could reasonably have justified the additional charges.

The criminal proceedings concluded in 2009 with the Claimants’ acquittal (following the prosecution offering no further evidence at trial).

By this claim, issued in March 2015, the Claimants allege that they were prosecuted by the Defendant, that there was no reasonable and probable cause for their prosecution and that the prosecution was malicious. Further or alternatively, they contend that the Defendant’s conduct of the investigation and prosecution involved an abuse of public power calculated to cause them loss/damage in the form of their prosecution.

The core of the Defendant’s defence is that the police were not the prosecutor (the decision to charge having been made by the Crown Prosecution Service (“CPS”)) and in any event there was a proper case to prosecute and the Defendants officers acted at all times with good faith and to achieve the proper furtherance of justice.

Before, and also at the outset of the trial, I expressed my concern about the parties’ inadequate assessment of the amount of the reading in time required. I was given unmanageable reading lists in a case which was, not surprisingly given the age of its subject matter, heavily document driven. Fortunately I was able to create some additional reading time within the trial time estimate, but it was still inadequate. This meant that throughout, and after, the hearings I have still been reading documents with a consequential knock on effect on time available for other cases (during a long trial issues arise in relation to other cases which have to be addressed and other cases need to be listed after it ends) and also other judicial work. The parties are required to help the Court to further the overriding objective which includes allotting to their case an appropriate share of the court’s resources, while taking into account the need to allot resources to other cases. To comply with this duty parties must be realistic and give early and accurate assessments about required reading in time.