I wrote last week about the case of my client Gemma Barnes, an animal rights activist who encountered police violence and prejudice whilst exercising her right of protest at a cattle market in Norfolk.
She was initially arrested for alleged breach of a bail condition, which had in fact been lifted weeks earlier by the court, and she was then further arrested on what I considered to be a false allegation of assaulting a police officer – the assault supposedly occurring whilst the officers, having trussed up my client not only in handcuffs but also leg restraints, were in the process of throwing her into the back of a police van.
The hostility which permeates the policing profession when it comes to activists like Gemma, also seems apparent in the harshness of some of the treatment they receive from the Courts as well. Gemma’s case actually concluded in April 2024, but I was not able to immediately write about it because Gemma was at that time under a different set of bail conditions which included a prohibition forbidding her (on pain of arrest) from “posting anything online regarding any police officers or encouraging or instructing anyone else to do so.”
This type of Orwellian gagging order, clamping down not only on Gemma’s freedom of speech but also (indirectly) that of others, for which she would otherwise pay the penalty, seems more a product of 1984 than 2024…
Be that as it may, the bail condition now having been lifted, I can continue with this story without jeopardising Gemma’s liberty.
Two Defendants, Two Denials
As I explained in last week’s blog, because there was a dispute over who was responsible for the mistake which apparently led to Gemma’s bail status not having been updated on police databases, it was necessary to bring legal proceedings against both the Ministry of Justice (the MOJ) – who were responsible for the Magistrates’ Court Service who had imposed and then varied the bail condition – and the Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary, whose officers carried out the arrest.
The MOJ filed a Defence in which they acknowledged that Norwich Magistrates’ Court had withdrawn the bail condition preventing Gemma from attending Neat Market Road in Norwich (the place of her arrest on 19 February 2022) on 8 February 2022 and that a notification as to the correct bail conditions (i.e. that there were none) was sent to the police on 17 February 2022 (two days prior to Gemma’s arrest) and that therefore the police should have been aware that Gemma was now on unconditional bail.
Hence all liability for Gemma’s arrest, whether under the Data Protection Act, in Negligence or under the Human Rights Act was denied.
For their part, Norfolk Constabulary filed a Defence to Gemma’s claim which was equally vociferous in its denial of liability. They claimed to have no knowledge of the alleged notification of the correct bail conditions which the MOJ claimed was sent on 17 February, and instead relied upon the notification which they said the court had sent to the Police National Computer (PNC) on the day of the hearing itself (8 February) which had (incorrectly) maintained that Gemma was still under an exclusion not to enter Neat Market.
Hence, it was maintained by Norfolk Constabulary that their officer’s arrest of Gemma was lawful as it was honestly based on apparently correct information appearing on police computer systems. They staunchly asserted that they did not receive notification of the withdrawal of the bail conditions at any time prior to Gemma’s arrest and that when my client was first arrested and protested that the bail conditions had been removed, Police Sergeant Rimmer had carried out checks on both the PNC and the Athena Case Management System used by the police, and the results were that the bail conditions remained in place/live.
It was further asserted that all of their uses of force upon Gemma were lawful and that it was legitimately perceived by the Officers present that Gemma had assaulted one of their member whilst they were in the process of lifting her into the back of the van – whilst she was handcuffed and leg strapped.
Be that as it may, these two contradictory Defences obviously raised a number of questions and, indeed, eyebrows.
The principle question that occurred to me was this – if Norfolk Constabulary’s version of events, as advanced in its Defence, was correct and none of the Police computer systems contained the correct information about the lifting of Gemma’s bail condition – then how was it that the Officers, within seconds of Gemma’s second arrest (for the alleged assault upon one of the Police Officers), suddenly became so confidently aware that the bail condition had been lifted. I strongly suspected that all relevant documentary evidence had not been disclosed to us yet by the Police and therefore, in the aftermath of the filing of the Defences, I probed their position with a series of requests for further information (under Part 18 of the Civil Procedure Rules) and specific disclosure (under Part 31 of the Civil Procedure Rules), the best tools which a lawyer has to test the other party’s case prior to trial.
In particular, I required Norfolk Constabulary to explain exactly how and precisely when Acting Inspector Binns became aware of the true state of affairs in regards to Gemma’s bail status, in light of the assertions made in the Defence to the effect that neither the PNC nor the Athena System had been amended to show the correct bail status, and furthermore the Police’s claim not to have received any ‘manual update’ from the Court as to my client’s correct bail status.
It turned out that I had asked exactly the right questions, as in response, Norfolk Constabulary now handed over previously unseen documents which completely changed the picture as to liability and led to the Police having to file an amended Defence in which the following admissions were made–
- On 9 February 2022, Police Constable Ward emailed the Court to enquire about the outcome of Gemma’s Magistrates Court case. Rachel Lewis, Team Leader at the Court, emailed the Officer to confirm that Gemma had attended and entered a not guilty plea. The trial date was provided.
- PC Ward forwarded the email to Police Sergeant Larkin that day, PS Larkin emailed Rachel Lewis to ask if the bail conditions had remained. She responded: “No, she is now on unconditional bail”.
- PS Larkin then emailed Rachel Lewis on 15 February 2022 and wrote: “We have just looked at Barnes in relation to this as we are building the file – the System states she is still on bail? Is there somewhere we can double check? Rachel Lewis responded: “She is on unconditional bail”.
- PS Larkin and Rachel Lewis exchanged further emails during which it was acknowledged that the PNC had not been updated at that time (15 February 2022) because of a Court error. Rachel Lewis said that she would raise it with the Courts ‘resulting’ team; in the meantime, she provided PS Larkin with the actual result copied from the Court system (i.e the confirmation of ‘no bail conditions’).
- PS Larkin then emailed Police Sergeant Taylor who was anticipated to be the attending Sergeant at the Neat Market protest that weekend. The subject header was ‘DO NOT ARREST GEMMA BARNES FOR BREACH OF BAIL’. He wrote that there had been an issue at the Court and the correct result was that Gemma was now on unconditional bail. However, the Sergeant attending the Livestock Market was then changed i.e. it was no longer PS Taylor but, crucially, PS Larkin’s email was not passed on, and neither of these senior officers (Taylor or Larkin) had updated the wider Police computer systems.
- PS Larkin had then received a phone call from A/Inspector Binns on 19 February (whilst PS Larkin was on a rest day) to ask about the bail conditions, following Gemma’s arrest, and had verbally disclosed to the Inspector what he knew. Apparently, no notes were made of this conversation.
Well: if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
None of that crucial chain of email correspondence between Norfolk Constabulary and the Magistrates Court, and between PS Larkin and PS Taylor, had been referenced at all in either the Complaint Investigation Report or Norfolk Constabulary’s pre-action response to the letter of claim which we had sent on behalf of Gemma. Had they been, then it is quite clear that this claim could have been settled at a much earlier stage and without the need to issue Court proceedings also involving the Ministry of Justice.
It was now quite clear that Norfolk Constabulary was aware of the lifting of Gemma’s bail conditions but had, for whatever reason, failed to properly record and enshrine that information within its ‘datasphere’, an omission that various Officers ‘on the ground’ at the time of Gemma’s arrest had then been able to rely on as their ‘excuse’.
Whether these failings were as a result of deliberate malice towards Gemma, or incompetence – or some institutional hybrid of the two, in a Force where some Officers seem to have regarded Gemma as a ‘problem’ and relished the opportunity to teach her a lesson, cannot be known for certain – but in the end it was my client who ended up teaching the Police lessons about respect for civil rights, their use of arrest powers, the double duties of thorough and candid disclosure and the cost of failing to do so.
Shortly after the filing of the amended Defence I was able to bring Gemma’s claim to a successful conclusion with Norfolk Constabulary agreeing to pay her £8,750 damages for her wrongful arrest, plus the legal costs which we she had incurred in having to bring proceedings not only against them but also the Ministry of Justice.
I am proud to have been on the front line of this fight alongside Gemma. When the Police fail to respect individuals, and fail to respect their own professional duties and the boundaries of the law that govern them, this is what results.
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