ANPR Errors Lead to Wrongful Arrest

In this week’s blog post I will discuss a case which highlights the risks to liberty which modern motorists face because of the increasing number of ‘cloned’ vehicles on the road combined with insufficiently thorough or intelligent policing (i.e. a new problem combined with a very old one).

Automatic Number Plate Recognition, generally abbreviated as ANPR, refers to a technology now used by Police forces around the world (but which originated in the UK) for a variety of law-enforcement purposes. ANPR systems utilise the ubiquitous camera- coverage of our transport network – CCTV cameras, road enforcement cameras, mobile Police units etc – to allow the Police to track the movement or location of vehicles of interest, by reference to the registration plate. As vehicles pass ANPR cameras their registrations are being read and recorded and this allows the Police to carry out a retrospective search – potentially going back 12 months in time, to establish the movements of a particular vehicle. The registration plate of that vehicle will be fed into the ANPR database, which will then produce what is in effect a map of the vehicle’s journeys over the relevant time period, with ‘hits’ from cameras providing snapshots of the vehicle’s comings and goings on local and/or regional and/or national routes and the dates on which the vehicle was in the proximity of each camera.

An ANPR Alibi?

My client David, who lives in South Wales, was in possession of a Citroen Berlingo van, supplied and owned by his employer. The van was clearly marked with the distinctive red and black insignia of his employers. Due to David’s ill health, he was signed off work sick and the van had remained on David’s driveway for approximately 18 months. During that period the van had only been driven a few times.

Unbeknownst to David, another van with a registration plate cloned from David’s van was involved in an incident in London in June 2021, during which the driver of the Clone assaulted a cyclist. This was reported to the Metropolitan Police and the crime was investigated by PC Brown. Images of the Clone and its registration plate were captured on CCTV, and a description of the driver provided to the Police. At a point unknown, PC Brown contacted South Wales Police and requested that David be arrested.

In late November 2021 David was at his home address in the rear garden. Officers from South Wales Police, including PC Shankland, attended in a marked police van, which they parked outside David’s house. The officers then entered through David’s garage, passing the real van on the driveway, and approached David in the rear garden. David initially feared that they were there because something terrible had happened to his wife, but this awful fear then turned to a different kind of shock and confusion as the officers proceeded to arrest David for Grievous Bodily Harm. David was handcuffed to the front and escorted, bewildered, to the police van. He was upset to see that the officers had parked their van across his driveway with the vehicle’s blue lights activated, in full view of neighbours and passers-by.

David was conveyed to his nearest Police Station and produced before the custody sergeant. PC Shankland provided the circumstances of arrest as:

“TEAM 2… ARREST ON BEHALF OF MET POLICE. D/P ARRESTED SECTION 18 ASSAULT GBH. CIRCS: D/P SHOWN AS WANTED FOR MET OFFENCE. ALLEGATION D/P IS ALLEGED TO HAVE RUN A PEDAL CYCLIST OFF THE ROAD USING HIS VAN AND STOPPED. D/P HAS ALIGHTED FROM HIS VEHICLE AND HAS PUNCHED D/P TO THE FACE CAUSING INJURY REQUIRING 10 STITCHES.”

The arrest necessity reasons were given as:

“Allow the prompt and effective investigation; Prevent person causing physical injury; Prevent the disappearance of the person”

David’s detention was authorised, he was then processed, searched, had his fingerprints and DNA taken and was placed into a cell: the full, de-humanising ‘criminal suspect’ treatment. Whilst David was in custody, his wife returned home and, on finding David gone, became extremely concerned for his welfare because of his recent ill health. She was then informed by a neighbour that David had been arrested.  

Late that evening, David’s detention was reviewed by Inspector Alexander, who commented to David that the arrest was unusual given how long it had been since the alleged assault (i.e. 5 months). David made representations to Inspector Alexander that he had not been in London for several years and about his ill health at the time of the alleged assault. Inspector Alexander then updated David’s custody record with the following entry:

“Detention authorisation

I have considered the account of the arresting officer detailing the circumstances of arrest and I consider that the arrested person’s detention is not necessary.

I earlier spoke to the DP on the cell intercom in order to conduct a review with him. When I spoke to the DP, he made representations to me to the effect that he should not be in custody. He stated that he was alleged to have committed a GBH in London in May 2021 and was aware that he had been linked purely from a work vehicle being linked to the scene.

He informed me that he had not been to London for 3 years and that he had actually been quite unwell at the time of the alleged offence due to COVID and other issues. His weight had dropped to 7 stone and he was not going very far, certainly not London. He stated that the van in question was parked on his driveway and had only driven 60 miles in 12 months, which would be confirmed through an officer going to the address and checking the odometer, which could be confirmed against recent MOT tests which also log the mileage.

I then spoke to the OIC [officer in case] from Metropolitan Police who, at this point, was en-route from London… to interview the DP and was approximately 2 hours away. The OIC informed me that essentially, the only evidence linking the DP to the offence was the index of the vehicle, which was passed by the complainant and was also captured on CCTV nearby…

The OIC informed me that ANPR [Automatic Number Plate Recognition] enquiries had been conducted, which returned no positive hits on the vehicle. I explained to the OIC the ANPR coverage within South Wales and on the M4, and the OIC conceded that the vehicle described in London may well have been on false plates.

Based on the information provided to me, I am not satisfied that there is sufficient evidence available to form reasonable suspicion that the DP was responsible for the offence. The offence took place 6 months ago and the DP resides in another part of the UK. The offence was a stranger crime. Therefore, I am also not satisfied that the necessity criteria for allowing the prompt and effective investigation (the offence is 6 months old and other background enquiries could have been conducted to implicate / negate the DP’s involvement prior to arrest), preventing the person causing physical injury (again, the offence is 6 months old and the DP resides in a different part of the UK from the offence location) or preventing the disappearance of the person (the DP has a fixed address).

I have given the OIC some advice as to what background enquiries could be conducted, with the assistance of SWP, into confirming whether or not the DP was in fact responsible, such as ANPR enquiries, VOSA [Vehicle and Operator Services Agency] enquiries, considering taking a statement or interviewing the DP as a VA [Voluntary Attendance] etc.

I have since spoken to the DP. He is happy for his contact details to be passed to the Metropolitan Police for them to progress their enquiries outside of detention, either as a witness or voluntary attendance. Equally, he is happy for an officer to attend and inspect his vehicle, which he states will confirm its lack of movement over the past 12 months.

In view of the above circumstances, at the point of conducting the Inspector’s review, I am not prepared to authorise the DP’s continued detention as I do not feel that it is necessary.

The DP is to be released without charge.”

Based on the above, David was then released from custody under investigation (after approximately 8 hours of detention) with the understanding that a non-custodial interview would be arranged the following day.

David found the incident to be deeply distressing. Not only was he shocked at being arrested for a violent offence that he knew nothing about, but also was also deeply humiliated by the public manner of his arrest. Afterwards, David remained fearful that ‘lightning might strike twice’ and that he could again be arrested for a crime of which he knew nothing. This made it hard for him to put these upsetting events behind him.

ANPR & Human Error

When David contacted me for advice, I reviewed the evidence and advised him that he had a strong claim for wrongful arrest based on a lack of reasonable grounds to suspect he was the culprit and/or a lack of necessity to arrest him (as opposed to the Police making further enquiries without arrest). This was on the basis that – even leaving aside differences in the appearance of both David and his van from that of the suspect and his vehicle – there was no evidence to suggest that David’s vehicle had travelled between London and South Wales at any time between the incident and David’s arrest.

ANPR technology had been used, but the Police at both ends of this process – at the Met and in South Wales – had each failed to recognise the obvious significance of the absence of ANPR hits for the vehicle registration on the roads between the offence location and the arrest location. If David really was the culprit, ANPR would have recorded his vehicle travelling between London and South Wales. Unless David’s vehicle could ‘teleport’ the obvious conclusion from the lack of ANPR recordings should have been that it was a wholly separate vehicle with the same registration plate (i.e a clone) which was involved in the London incident. 

As Inspector Alexander appears to have noted, it frankly beggars belief that the offending vehicle would not have generated ‘hits’ on the ANPR system showing it travelling between South Wales and London if it had in fact undertaken that journey and the absence of ANPR hits for this registration on any of the roads between South Wales and the Capital was highly persuasive evidence that the vehicle belonging to David had remained in Wales throughout the relevant time period.  Any technology is only as good, of course, as its human users, and if a modicum of intelligence had been applied to the ANPR process as outlined above – the Police could surely have ruled out David’s vehicle as the offending vehicle. 

Such a reckless misuse of Police powers – causing deep distress to David and his wife and depriving David of his liberty for approximately 8 hours – was almost as bad as deliberate abuse of power.

The chain of errors which led to David’s disastrous day, had originated with the Met, but it was also valid to pursue a claim for wrongful arrest against South Wales Police themselves on the basis that their Officers had a duty to assess the strength of the evidence against my client prior to arresting him and Inspector Jones’ post-arrest summary of the evidence clearly set out why South Wales Police should not have acted upon the Met’s request.

On my advice, David pursued claims against both the Metropolitan Police Service and South Wales Police for their combined bungling of the investigation which had led to his wrongful arrest, and I am pleased to confirm that I was able to secure a total settlement of £8,000 damages for David, plus his legal costs.

Ultimately, this was a case where two Police Forces were at fault in terms of negligent decision making and I was very happy to help David hold them both to account, although the case also serves as a somewhat chilling reminder about how ‘vehicle identity theft’ in the form of cloned registration plates potentially puts us all at risk of losing our liberty if the Police subsequently fail to join the evidential dots with due diligence.

As do we all, Police Officers investigating crimes have to adapt to modern circumstances. The fact that any person who is identified on the basis of a vehicle registration plate only could be at risk of wrongful arrest if that plate has been cloned, should give officers long pause for thought when they are considering whether to arrest – especially when there is a significant geographical disparity between the location of the crime and the location of the suspect and also when, as in this case, there has also been such a significant passage of time.

I also have to add that this is the fourth such case that I have handled in the last few years in which gross Police errors – specifically in the form of violent stops and/or arrests of innocent motorists – could have been avoided had ANPR data been sensibly interpreted.

What is the point of having a ‘surveillance society’ if the law enforcement administrators of that surveillance can’t be trusted to use it properly or proportionately?

All names have been changed.