In September 2023, my client Edward was staying at a friend’s house in Grimsby. One evening he went out socialising in Grimsby Town, met a woman and the two of them returned to Edward’s friend’s house in the early hours of the morning, only to discover officers of Humberside Police in attendance.
The officers told Edward that they were looking for his brother, Liam. Indeed, they had just conducted a search of the house looking for Liam – but he was not there. My client, who had not seen Liam recently, but who knew the Police were after him commented playfully (perhaps a little ‘cheekily’) “Enjoy lads…you know what, it’s a game of hide and seek innit”.
Thinking nothing further of this, Edward then went into his friend’s house. The Police officers present now had a discussion between themselves, however, and decided on the basis of my client’s comment that he might in fact know the location of Liam – and that because he wasn’t volunteering this information to the officers, despite knowing that his brother was wanted, then he was thereby himself committing the criminal offence of ‘assisting an offender’.
This is an offence contrary to Section 4(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 which, under the heading ‘Penalties for assisting offenders’ provides as follows –
Where a person has committed a relevant offence, any other person who, knowing or believing him to be guilty of the offence or of some other relevant offence, does without lawful authority or reasonable excuse any act with intent to impede his apprehensional prosecution shall be guilty of an offence.
PC Healey now knocked on the door of the house, asked Edward to step outside “for a chat” and once he did so, the officer arrested my client “On suspicion of assisting an offender”.
Shocked and confused, Edward truthfully asserted that all he knew was that Liam had told him that he was staying with his current girlfriend – but he (Edward) did not know this girl’s address.
All Edward knew – in his own words to the officers – was that his brother was at “Some bird’s” but the officers, unphased, proceeded with his arrest.
Edward was handcuffed, searched and locked in a caged section of a nearby Police van, despite his continued protests that he was being arrested for no reason other than being Liam’s brother.
He was particularly distressed because he had been arrested in front of the girl he had met that night and his other friends in the house, and he now also feared he was not going to be able to attend work in the morning, risking his employment at a job he had only recently started. He protested that his brother’s misdemeanours were nothing to do with him.
As is very common in such situations, Edward was not only experiencing the emotional distress and disorientation of a wrongful arrest, he was also suffering significant pain and discomfort from the tight and uncomfortable handcuffs with which he had been ‘manacled’.
Edward was then driven to a nearby custody centre where he was processed and incarcerated in a cell.
According to the Custody Record, the circumstances of Edward’s arrest were as follows –
“Officer had been conducting arrest attempts for a wanted male, suspect has disclosed to officers he has recently seen the wanted male but would not assist officers.”
After around five long and unpleasant hours in the cell Edward was brought out – and then released with no further action.
By now however, it was too late for him to go into work and he lost a day’s wages as a result, although fortunately he kept his job – albeit, by the skin of his teeth (as he later told me).
After receiving Edward’s instructions I considered this to be a shocking abuse of Police power and pursued a claim for damages for Edward’s wrongful arrest from the Chief Constable of Humberside Police.
Following investigation, the Police admitted full liability but made an offer of settlement of only £1,700.
I obtained disclosure of all the Police evidence relating to this case – including, crucially, the body camera footage of the arresting officer and his colleagues, which now revealed that, unbeknownst to Edward, the officers had also carried out a search of his bedroom. I advised Edward that this revelation gave rise to an additional claim for Breach of Privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
When Humberside Police continued to fail to make any satisfactory offer of compensation, I commenced court proceedings on behalf of Edward.
A Defence was filed in which the Police stated that the officers at the scene had initially believed that Edward had said that he did know the whereabouts of his brother, and was choosing not to give the address to the officers – but that on review of the body camera footage they now accepted that was not what Edward had said and accordingly the officers had ‘misheard’ my client.
However, the fact of the matter here is that even if Edward had known the precise address where his brother was staying at the time, he was under no obligation to volunteer that information to the Police and nor would his refusing to tell them in response to direct questioning have constituted a criminal offence. The wording of Section 4 of the Criminal Law Act, quoted above, is quite clear – the ‘assistance’ of an offender must be a positive act intended to impede the suspect’s apprehension; this law was never intended to criminalise a failure to disclose information to the Police in such circumstances. It is an offence that is designed to sanction those who assist offenders not those who don’t assist the Police, yet, even on their own interpretation of what Edward had done that night, it was that latter (non- existent) offence for which PC Healey and his colleagues were actually arresting Edward, not the actual offence.
This was actually reflected in the Police Incident Log the day after Edward’s arrest, in the following entry made by the arresting officer’s supervisor.
The S [suspect] was detained for assisting an offender…I asked the officer what evidence was there that the S did some positive act to assist the S. The arresting officer could not give me any evidence. I have watched the BWV [body worn video] the S actually states to officers “I don’t know where my brother is” officers can be heard discussing there is no evidence for arrest because they were told to. In the officer’s statement, the S states that his brother is playing hide and seek. At no point does he state he is helping his brother and I have been provided no evidence to understand why he is IC [in Custody].
As the Police supervisor correctly and succinctly concludes – “There may be a moral duty to tell Police, but this is not a criminal offence”.
That is of course quite correct – if the law were otherwise it would effectively criminalise all family members and friends of a criminal suspect who did not, in the parlance of the street, turn themselves into ‘grasses’.
Personally, I am very grateful that we live in a country in which brothers, mothers, friends, and neighbours are not required by law to inform on one another – questions of morality/ethics being quite another matter, but quite rightly one which rests in the individual’s free conscience. You can read my previous blogs on this subject, covering unlawful arrests for “obstruction through silence” here and here.
I am pleased to confirm that the claim has now been recently settled for a payment of £5,000 damages, plus Edward’s legal costs.
The name of my client and his brother has been changed.
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