Brooks v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis & Ors [2005] UKHL 24 (21 April 2005)

A witness to the racist murder of his friend, Stephen Lawrence, sued the police for negligence for the post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered due to their poor treatment of him. The House of Lords held the police owe no specific duty of care to a victim or witness during their investigation.

Facts

The claimant, Mr Duwayne Brooks, was a close friend of Stephen Lawrence. On 22 April 1993, they were both subjected to a sudden and unprovoked racist attack by a group of white youths. Mr Lawrence was fatally stabbed, and Mr Brooks was also a victim of the attack, narrowly escaping serious injury himself. Mr Brooks suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a direct result of the events of that night. He brought a claim for damages against the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, alleging negligence and other torts. The negligence claim was based on the way police officers treated him immediately after the attack, contending that they failed to act with reasonable skill and care. Specifically, he alleged he was treated more as a suspect than a victim; he was not comforted; his need for first aid and his account of the attack were not properly handled; and the overall insensitive and unprofessional conduct of the officers exacerbated his psychiatric injury.

Issues

The central legal issue before the House of Lords was whether the police owe a duty of care in negligence to a victim and witness of a crime in respect of their actions and omissions during the investigation of that crime. This required the court to consider:

Duty of Care

Whether, in the circumstances, the police owed Mr Brooks a duty of care to take reasonable steps to protect him from the kind of psychiatric harm he sustained. This involved examining the relationship between the parties and applying the three-stage test from Caparo Industries plc v Dickman, specifically whether it would be ‘fair, just and reasonable’ to impose such a duty.

The Hill Principle

How the principle from Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [1989] AC 53, which established a general immunity for the police from negligence claims regarding the investigation of crime, applied to the facts of this case. The court had to decide if Mr Brooks’s case could be distinguished from Hill, given that he was not merely a member of the public but a primary victim and key witness who was directly involved with the police from the outset.

Judgment

The House of Lords unanimously dismissed the appeal, holding that the police did not owe the claimant a duty of care in negligence. While deeply critical of the police’s conduct, as documented in the Macpherson Report, the Law Lords concluded that imposing such a duty would be contrary to public policy.

Lord Steyn’s Reasoning

Lord Steyn, giving the leading speech, acknowledged that Mr Brooks was a primary victim and not a secondary victim. He also accepted that proximity and foreseeability were established. However, the claim failed on the third limb of the Caparo test. He stated that the core principle of Hill was about protecting the police’s operational effectiveness:

In the case of the police, a real risk of a plethora of claims would be likely to be a significant diversion of police manpower and attention from their most important function, the suppression of crime. The present case concerns a complaint about the way in which the police handled a witness in a murder case. It is easy to imagine a dozen other complainants in the same case… A retreat from the principle in Hill’s case would have detrimental effects for law enforcement.

He reasoned that imposing a duty of care could lead to defensive policing and a diversion of resources from the primary duty of investigating crime for the benefit of the public as a whole. While distinguishing the facts from Hill, as Mr Brooks was a specific individual directly engaged with the police, Lord Steyn held that the underlying public policy considerations were too powerful to permit the creation of such a duty.

Lord Bingham’s Concurrence

Lord Bingham agreed, emphasising that while the police conduct was ‘deplorable’, a civil action for negligence was not the appropriate avenue for redress. He highlighted that other mechanisms exist to hold police to account, such as disciplinary procedures, criminal sanctions, and claims under the Human Rights Act 1998. He noted the potential for conflict between a duty owed to an individual and the overarching duty owed to the public to pursue justice.

Implications

The decision in Brooks reaffirms and clarifies the scope of the police’s immunity from negligence claims established in Hill. It demonstrates the courts’ continued reluctance to impose private law duties of care on public bodies where this could conflict with their core public functions. The judgment confirms that even where there is a very close ‘proximate’ relationship between the police and an individual (as a victim and witness), public policy considerations concerning the effective investigation of crime will generally outweigh the individual’s interest in receiving compensation for negligently inflicted harm. The case highlights the distinction between finding conduct to be unacceptable and finding it to be actionable in tort, pointing claimants towards alternative remedies such as the Human Rights Act.

Verdict: The appeal was dismissed.

Source: Brooks v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis & Ors [2005] UKHL 24 (21 April 2005)