Court of Appeal Orders Re-trial of Jason Paul’s civil action against the Police
Jason Paul, wrongly accused by the police of assaulting Christopher Alder before Mr Alder was unlawfully killed in police custody, has today been given another chance to secure civil justice by the Court of Appeal.
In an important legal ruling, the Court of Appeal decided that at the trial of Jason Paul’s civil claim against the police last year the trial judge was wrong to withdraw the case from the jury and throw out the claim.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the jury should have had the chance to reach findings of fact as to whether the police acted in bad faith towards Jason Paul, as there WAS evidence from which the jury could have concluded that the police charged Jason Paul to draw public attention away from their own misconduct in allowing Christopher Alder, a young black man, to die on the custody suite floor with his hands handcuffed behind back and his trousers round his knees.
Background
In a civil case brought by a young black man, Jason Paul, against Humberside police, the Court of Appeal today found that the trial judge was wrong to withdraw findings of fact from the jury as to whether the police had acted with the improper motive of wishing to distract attention from their own misconduct.
Lord Justice Brooke, in the lead judgment, allowed the appeal and directed a retrial before a different judge and jury.
Mr Paul brought a claim for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution after he was arrested for murder and detained on 1st April 1998. He was then charged with GBH with intent and denied bail on 2nd April 1998 in relation to the death of Christopher Alder, another young black man. On 1st May 1998 magistrates granted him unconditional bail. On 30th June 1998 the CPS told Mr Paul the case against him was to be discontinued and this formally happened on 10th July 1998.
It was accepted that Mr. Paul had nothing to do with the death of Mr Alder.
Chez Cotton, solicitor at Hickman and Rose, said today:
"Mr Paul is extremely relieved by today’s decision. He has an extremely strong case that the Humberside police charged him to distract public attention away from their own behavior. The police allowed Christopher Alder, a young black man, to die while lying on the floor in a police custody suite with his hands handcuffed behind his back, with his trousers around his knees, while five police officers stood by and did nothing. Jason Paul wishes the Alder family success in their continued battle for justice."
Facts giving rise to Jason Paul’s claim against the police
In the early hours of April 1st 1998, Mr Paul intervened to stop a fight between Christopher Alder and another man outside the Waterfront nightclub in Hull. Mr Paul learned later that day that Mr Alder had died. He appreciated that the police would wish to speak to him and he attended voluntarily at Tower Grange police station, Hull, with a local solicitor, to assist the police in their investigation into the death of Christopher Alder.
On arrival he was arrested for murder without being interviewed, having simply told the police that he was trying to separate a fight and that Mr Alder had started throwing punches at him and he had hit Mr Alder once. Mr Paul was distraught at being arrested for murder and burst into tears.
Mr Paul then co-operated fully with the police and gave four full and frank police interviews, in which he maintained throughout that he was a friend of Mr Alder and had intervened as a peacemaker and had acted reasonably, only in self-defence. At the civil trial last year, the police conceded that it was a "massive lead and assistance" that Mr Paul should have come forward so soon and fully co-operated, and that it was "particularly helpful" that he had attended voluntarily.
By the evening of 2nd April 1998 the police had the detailed and consistent account given to them in interview and knew that there was no evidence to show a causative link between Mr Paul’s punch and Mr Alder’s death, since this had been confirmed by the pathologist performing the autopsy on Mr Alder. The police had also viewed the CCTV footage from outside the nightclub and had disclosed to Mr Paul’s solicitor that it looked as if Mr Paul was not the aggressor. They had also interviewed a witness and his evidence of the events leading up to the punch supported what Mr Paul had told them. However, the police still decided to charge Mr Paul with GBH with intent.
The police refused Mr Paul bail on the grounds that it was for his own protection because of a danger of violence from a mentally unstable brother of Mr Alder. No attempt was made by the police to discuss this with Mr Paul or Mr Alder’s brother (i.e. to ascertain if any risk existed at all). Representations that Mr Paul could live away from Hull with his sister were ignored. The police themselves then released to the press Mr Paul’s name and home address, where he was living with his pregnant girlfriend, without even leaving it to the normal reporting of his next court appearance.
There was considerable publicity, all linking Mr Paul with the death of Christopher Alder. In fact, Mr Alder had been taken by ambulance to Hull Royal Infirmary after the incident outside the nightclub. The hospital called the police and Mr Alder was arrested. Mr Alder was taken by police van to Queen’s Road Police Station. He was brought into the custody suite by police officers and on arrival laid on the floor of the custody suite. His hands were handcuffed behind his back, his trousers were down between his knees.
Detective Inspector Brookes was the senior officer on call that night and he was called at home at 4.55am. He gave instructions for the scene of death to be preserved. He arrived at the police station half an hour later and saw Mr Alder’s body on the custody suite floor. Mr Alder’s death was reported to the Police Complaints Authority and West Yorkshire police were brought in to investigate the death. Hull police were left in charge of the investigation into the incident outside the Waterfront club.
At the civil trial brought by Mr Paul, the trial judge and legal teams saw the video from the custody suite, but not the jury. The first part of the video film showed the police officers doing little apart from discussing what charge, if any, they could bring against Mr Alder. After about 11 minutes one of the officers investigated whether Mr Alder was continuing to breathe. At that point they made attempts to resuscitate him and called in paramedics to no effective purpose. The trial judge said that Mr Alder died in plainly distressing and unpleasant circumstances on the floor of the custody suite.
The five police officers who were in the custody suite were suspended from duty about a month after Mr Alder’s death. More than two years later a very long inquest culminated in a verdict of unlawful killing due to neglect. A prosecution for manslaughter followed at the Teeside Crown Court in June 2002, but the judge ruled there was no case to answer and the matter therefore did not go to the jury.
Detective Constable Mainland, who was one of the officers that interviewed Mr Paul, completed a form containing confidential information for the prosecutor on 1st April 1998. The document ended, "There is currently an investigation under way by the Police Complaints Authority regarding the death in custody. It is requested that details of the death in custody are not divulged to the court."
DC Mainland was unable to explain to at Jason Paul’s civil trial against the police why these words were written.
Trial details
The trial was heard over 6 days starting on 28th July 2003 by Judge Heppel QC sitting with a jury at Sheffield County Court. The Judge ruled there was sufficient evidence available to the police to arrest Mr Paul and to then charge him and detain him in police custody until the following morning after he was charged. The judge directed that judgment should be entered for the defendant and there were no factual issues to be left to the jury to decide.
The Appeal
Mr Patrick O’Connor QC with Stephen Simblett, instructed by Hickman and Rose, representing Mr Paul at appeal, argued that the police had been motivated in their dealings with Mr Paul by a wish to distract public attention from the fact that a young black man had died while lying on the floor in a police custody suite with his hands handcuffed behind his back. Had the behaviour of the police not been in question then they would not have acted as they did.
The police’s decision to arrest Mr Paul and detain him in custody on 1st April 1998, to charge him at all and to refuse him bail were all made unlawful by their ulterior motive of wishing to draw the public’s attention away from their own misconduct in relation to the death of Christopher Alder. Findings of fact could have been made into all three of these matters, findings the jury should have been allowed to reach. It was argued that the judge had been wrong to withdraw them from the jury.
Evidence before the jury showed that Detective Inspector Brookes, the third senior member of the police inquiry team into the events at the Waterfront Club, had also been the senior officer on call at the police station where Mr Alder died. He was also based at Queens Road Police Station where Christopher Alder died. It was suggested that he would feel loyalty towards the officers at that station. At trial, despite the distressing facts of Mr Alder’s death, which were known to be captured on video, and the fact that DI Brookes had seen the body of Mr Alder on the custody suite floor, he told the jury that he had no reason to believe that any police officer would be likely to face criticism. DI Brookes had also vigorously contested the decision of CPS officials not to proceed with Mr Paul’s prosecution in the face of overwhelming evidence from witnesses that he was or might have been acting reasonably in self-defence.
Other evidence presented to the jury may also have led them to conclude that the police had not acted in good faith in their treatment of Mr Paul.
The decision to allow the appeal
Decision to arrest rather than to interview under caution as a volunteer
The Court of Appeal decided that the Judge wrongly excluded the possibility that it would have been open to the police to have interviewed Mr Paul under caution without first arresting him. Mr Paul was perfectly willing to co-operate with the police when he voluntarily attended the police station that night. All that the police wished to do in relation to Mr Paul (in terms of interviewing him or taking his clothing or intimate samples) could have been achieved with his consent, as the custody sergeant accepted.
The arresting officer had simply done what his superior officers had told him to do, and in those circumstances it was wrong to withdraw from the jury the question whether the discretion to arrest had been exercised in good faith.
Decision to charge at all
Mr O’Connor QC submitted that the judge should not have withheld from the jury a decision on the police’s motives in charging Mr Paul on the evening of April 2nd in light of the steadily growing volume of evidence supportive of Mr Paul’s account (i.e. that he was acting in reasonable self-defence). By the time the papers reached the CPS, 12 different witnesses supported his story and they had evidence from the CCTV camera outside the Waterfront and the oral evidence of one witness when they decided to charge Mr Paul with criminal assault. There was evidence that might have tended to suggest to the jury that the police appeared evasive to the jury in relation to the film.
There was evidence to suggest that the police may have concentrated on one piece of witness evidence that may not have supported Mr Paul, whereas the main thrust of that witness’s evidence appeared to have been completely supportive of what Mr Paul had been telling the police about his need to act in self-defence.
There was also evidence before the jury that CPS officials were available to give advice to the police over the telephone on a 24-hour basis, and the jury may have been unimpressed by the fact that in such a sensitive case the police had made no attempt at all to seek such advice before charging Mr Paul. When the CPS were eventually consulted, one CPS officer expressed the opinion that it was unfortunate that the police had charged Mr Paul already, and when all the evidence had been submitted to the CPS for their consideration, the responsible officer expressed his opinion on the viability of a successful prosecution in robust terms: "[I]t is clear in my view that Paul can rely upon self-defence to justify his action …I can hardly see that he should be criticised for trying to calm the situation down … I am firmly of the opinion that there is insufficient evidence to show that the force used was unlawful and therefore the defence of self-defence is most likely to succeed …"
The Court of Appeal found that, on this issue, the trial judge concentrated almost exclusively on whether, objectively speaking, there was reasonable and probable cause for charging Mr Paul with the most serious offence available. He failed to consider whether there was evidence that the police were swayed in their decision to charge Mr Paul at all at such an early stage of their inquiries by their improper motive of seeking to distract attention from the events in the custody suite.
The Court of Appeal found that Mr Paul’s claim (i.e. that the police did not honestly believe that he had hit Mr Alder unlawfully) should have gone to the jury. The jury could have decided whether the police had moved precipitately into charging him in their determination (evidenced by DC Mainland’s confidential note) to distract attention from the events in the custody suite which cast a poor light on police behaviour.
Decision to refuse bail
In relation to the decision to refuse bail, the Court of Appeal decided that there was evidence there, too, which should have been left to a jury to decide.
Impact of Court of Appeal decision
The Court of Appeal has directed that the action be re-tried before a different judge and jury.
Details of representatives etc
Case No/B2/2003/1902 before:
Lord Justice Brooke, Vice–President of the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Lord Justice Chadwick and Lord Justice Maurice Kay.
Jason Paul (Claimant/Appellant) v Chief Constable Humberside Police (Defendant/Respondent)
Patrick O’Connor QC and Stephen Simblet (instructed by Hickman and Rose) for the Appellant
Nicholas Wilcox (instructed by Legal Services Unit, Humberside Police) for
Respondent
For more information contact Jason Paul’s solicitor, Chez Cotton: 0207 700 2211 or email: ccotton@hickmanandrose.co.uk
17th March 2004
