KB-2024-000763 - [2025] EWHC 2791 (KB)

In February 2024 the Claimant brought judicial review proceedings challenging the failure of the police to prosecute.

This claim, KB-2024-000763, covers similar matters, and was therefore stayed to allow the judicial review proceedings to conclude. The detailed grounds in support of the judicial review cited breach of a perceived statutory duty to pass the police file to the CPS and negligence, procedural unfairness/a lack of impartiality in the police investigation and an irrational outcome to the investigation. Breaches of Articles 1, 3 and 5 of the Human Rights Act 1998 were also relied upon.

The Defendant’s Grounds of Resistance (“the Grounds”) relied upon the Director's Guidance on Charging (“the Guidance”) being applied correctly. The decision not to refer the matter to the CPS was said to be reasonable because:

The Grounds clearly set out that cases which do not pass the evidential test specified in the Guidance “must not proceed, no matter how serious or sensitive". The assertion that the police are under a statutory duty to pass the file to the CPS for a charging decision was therefore stated to be incorrect.

Similarly the Grounds denied that there had been any procedural unfairness, and noted that the contradictory nature of the evidence between the victim and suspect was one of the reasons for taking no further action, because the evidence taken as a whole did not provide a realistic prospect of conviction. A suggestion that the police had not gathered all the evidence that they should have done was refuted, as it was asserted that it would not have advanced the case. The police asserted that the decision that the case did not meet the evidential threshold for a referral to the CPS, was not one that no reasonable prosecutor could have come to, and therefore was not irrational.

Lack of clarity regarding the alleged breach of Convention rights was relied upon as the reason for the Claimant’s application for permission in that regard to be refused. In addition to the specific points on the merits of the case, the Defendant sought to rely on the fact that the judicial review proceedings had been commenced out of time as a further reason for permission to be refused..

The Claimant filed written submissions on the application for reconsideration of his judicial review claim. In that document he cited alleged Data Protection Act breaches to the effect that he believed the police had deliberately not disclosed relevant papers to him in order to thwart his attempts to get the case prosecuted.

The judicial review proceedings were refused on the papers by a Deputy High Court Judge on 17^th June 2024 and, again, at a renewed oral permission hearing on 17^th October 2024 before Sir Peter Lane. The reasons given on the first occasion were:

Before Sir Peter Lane, each aspect was reconsidered and the findings of the Deputy High Court judge were upheld in all respects, namely the operation of the time limit, and that the Claimant had failed to satisfy the Court that the actions of the police had been irrational, illegal or procedurally unfair. It was further held the Grounds asserted under the Human Rights Act 1998 did not advance the case at all.