In the modern world many of us spend significant portions of our work and/or social life ‘online’, with the overwhelming majority of mail communications being electronic; however, the archaic reliance which Police and Court Services still place on paper correspondence mean that people are in jeopardy of wrongful arrest as a result of errors as elementary as the mis-recording of their residential address.
At all material times my client Mark resided at 10 Midwich Grove, Towerton, Wiltshire.
In April 2021 Mark attended a non-custodial interview at the request of Wiltshire Police, on suspicion of an offence of Actual Bodily Harm. At some point his home address was mistakenly recorded on Police Systems as 35 Moreland Road, Towerton, Wiltshire.
Unbeknownst to Mark, he was subsequently summonsed (by means of a postal requisition sent to the incorrect address) and was due to appear at Salisbury Magistrates Court in September 2022. However, he did not receive the Court summons and so did not attend. As a consequence of Mark’s non-attendance in September a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Mark of course suspected nothing. Over a month later, in October 2022, Wiltshire Police Officers attended at Mark’s home address and arrested him. He was taken away from his family, conveyed to a Custody Suite, processed and placed into a cell in a state of distress and bewilderment.
Mark was held overnight and appeared before Salisbury Magistrates Court the next day. At Court the mistake was established by the duty solicitor, and Mark was released at approximately midday.
Mark had thus suffered 18 hours of loss of liberty wholly as a result of the Police negligence in mis-recording his postal address on their system, which had in turn led the Magistrates Court to wrongly believe that my client had failed to answer the postal requisition, when he had not in fact received it, and for the Court to thus cause Mark to be unlawfully arrested and detained, in ignorance of the true facts.
On behalf of Mark, I pursued a claim against Wiltshire Police under the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act, and I am pleased to confirm that I have recently concluded his claim for damages in the sum of £8,500, plus legal costs.
This was a relatively straightforward case for me, but deserves highlighting nonetheless. There is simply no excuse for data errors to be committed in the Criminal Justice System, when a person’s liberty and record of good character are at stake.
Sadly, I know that this type of gross error by the Police is far from unique. If you or anyone you know has suffered a wrongful arrest as a result of Police or Court documents being sent to the wrong address, please don’t hesitate to contact me for advice and representation.
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