Police – Torts – False imprisonment – Suspicion – Terrorism – Unlawful arrest

Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v Mohamed Raissi: CA (Civ Div) (Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, Lords Justice Maurice Kay, Stanley Burnton): 12 November 2008

The appellant commissioner appealed against an order ([2007] EWHC 2842 (QB)) that the respondent (M) was entitled to damages for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment.

M had been arrested and detained on suspicion of involvement in the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001. The arresting officer (B) had relied, in making the judgement whether to arrest, on the fact that more senior officers might have other additional information to which he was not privy. M was the brother of a man (L) who was also suspected of being involved in the attacks and who lived near to M. M was not charged and was released after interview and a period of four-and-a-half days’ detention. The judge held that, although B subjectively suspected that M was concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, he had no reasonable grounds for the suspicion, which was an objective requirement. The commissioner argued that the judge had erred in principle in concluding that B did not have reasonable grounds to suspect that M was a terrorist in the sense defined in section 40 of the Terrorism Act 2000. In particular, the judge had wrongly discounted or dismissed the fact that B had taken into account M’s familial connections with a prime suspect, M was a close brother of L and the brothers had mutual access to each other’s houses and B had relied on the greater knowledge of his senior officers.

Held: B had not been told what his superiors suspected M to have done. It was not reasonable for B to infer that his superiors must have had good grounds for suspicion of terrorism and whether B had reasonable grounds for the suspicion depended on the information that he had had, O’Hara v Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary [1997] AC 286 HL, Castorina v Chief Constable of Surrey, the Times, 15 June 1988 CA (Civ Div) and McKee v Chief Constable of Northern Ireland [1984] 1 WLR 1358 HL considered. The proposition that it was sufficient for the arresting officer to infer that his superiors must have had reasonable grounds for suspicion before instructing him to arrest a suspect was inconsistent with the decision in O’Hara. Further, the fact that M and L were close brothers, that they lived not very far apart and that each had access to the other’s house did not afford B reasonable grounds for suspicion that M was a terrorist.

Appeal dismissed.

Michael Beloff QC, John Beggs (instructed by in-house solicitor) for the appellant; Tim Owen QC, Leslie Thomas (instructed by Tuckers) for the respondent.