July 25, 2022

ABC -v- The Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police (anonymity order)

Administrative Court High Court Queen's Bench Division Anonymity Order

Case No: CO/316/2022

In the High Court of Justice
Queen’s Bench Division
Administrative Court

13 July 2022

Before:

His Honour Judge Gosnell sitting as a Judge of the High Court

Between:

The Queen on the application of
ABC

-v-

The Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police

Notification of the Judge’s decision on the application for permission to apply for judicial review (CPR 54.11, 54.12)
Following consideration of the documents lodged by the Claimant and the Acknowledgement(s) of Service filed by the Defendant

ORDER by His Honour Judge Gosnell sitting as a Judge of the High Court

1. The application for permission to apply for judicial review is refused.
2. The application is certified as totally without merit.
3. The Claimant shall be referred to in this claim as “ABC” to ensure that her identity and in particular her child’s shall not be made public.
4. The costs of preparing the Acknowledgement of Service are to be paid by the Claimant to the Defendant, summarily assessed in the sum of £ 2,750.00.
5. Paragraph 3 above is a final costs order unless within 14 days of the date of this Order the Claimant files with the Court and serves on the Defendant a notice of objection setting out the reasons why he should not be required to pay costs (either as required by the costs order, or at all). If the Claimant files and serves notice of objection, the Defendant may, within 14 days of the date it is served, file and serve submissions in response. The Claimant may, within 7 days of the date on which the Defendant’s response is served, file and serve submissions in reply. Thereafter, a Judge will decide on the basis of the written representations referred to above, what order for costs, if any, should be made.

Reasons

1. A considerable number of documents which have emanated from the Family Court appear in the Judicial Review Bundle. Documents can only be disclosed from the Family Court into other proceedings where an order for disclosure has been sought and obtained from the Family Court in advance. To disclose the documents without such permission constitutes a contempt of court. I have seen no order within the bundle granting permission for such disclosure.
2. This claim is a legal challenge to the decision of the Defendant not to investigate allegations against eight individuals, five of whom at the time were serving Judges. As Lord Justice Laws found in R (Bermingham) v Director of SFO [2006] EWHC 2000 (Admin):
“ The true proposition is that it will take a wholly exceptional case on its legal merits to justify a judicial review of a discretionary decision by the Director to investigate or not.”
The same principle applies to this claim.
3. The allegations were serious. The crimes alleged to have been committed were perjury, perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office. An allegation of perjury is only likely to succeed if there is compelling evidence that a witness has lied in court. Despite the allegations made by the Claimant there was no compelling evidence that any witness could be proved to have lied. The fact that the Claimant did not believe that they were witnesses of truth is not the appropriate test which the Defendant had to apply;
4. The decision maker was permitted to take into account that allegations of perverting the course of justice or misconduct in public office made against serving Judges were allegations with a negligible chance of success. There appeared to be no evidence to support the allegations save that the Claimant disagreed with the conclusions which the Judges had reached;
5. Looking objectively at the decision not to investigate further , against the whole background of the previous litigation , it cannot be successfully argued that the decision was irrational from a public law perspective;
6. This court has a real concern that the current litigation is a further attempt to challenge decisions made by courts of competent jurisdiction in the family and defamation proceedings and accordingly amounts to an abuse of the court’s process;
7. Whilst the failure of the state to permit a citizen to pursue a legal right might in some circumstances amount to a breach of Article 3 ECHR this is a judicial review claim and not a Human Rights claim like Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (Appellant) v DSD [2018 ] UKSC11
8. The criticism of the Claimant that CI Travis fails to refer to all the detailed allegations in her ten page letter of complaint is unjustified. He recorded that he had read all the relevant representations and documents sent to him and reached a value judgment that there was insufficient evidence to support the alleged crimes being investigated. It was not incumbent on him to deal with each allegation separately in those circumstances. The fact that he was prepared to consider further representations which he did tends to militate against any allegations of bias;
9. Even if some technical failures were identified the claim would fall foul of s 31(2)(a) Supreme Court Act 1981 as the result would have been the same
10. This claim is truly hopeless and the court certifies it as totally without merit

CPR 54.12(7) APPLIES. THE CLAIMANT MAY NOT REQUEST THAT THE DECISION TO REFUSE PERMISSION TO APPLY FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW BE RECONSIDERED AT A HEARING.