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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Scottish Court of Session Decisions >> McKie v. John Orr [2002] ScotCS 40 (14th February, 2002) URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/2002/40.html Cite as: [2002] ScotCS 40 |
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McKie v. John Orr [2002] ScotCS 40 (14th February, 2002)
OUTER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION |
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A3254/00
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OPINION OF LORD EMSLIE in the cause SHIRLEY JANE McKIE Pursuer; against JOHN ORR Defender:
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Pursuer: A Smith; Digby Brown, S.S.C.
Defender: Maguire; Simpson & Marwick, W.S.
14 February 2002
"During that period, the pursuer was attending her GP and receiving treatment for depression and anxiety as a result of the allegations made against her and the aggressive manner in which they were being investigated by her superiors".
The Condescendence ends with averments of an "essentially unannounced" visit by the Chief Medical Officer of Strathclyde Police to the pursuer's place of work on 5 March 1998, ostensibly to ascertain her state of health, but during which the doctor is alleged to have behaved in a strange and evasive manner. This was on the day before the arrest which forms the subject-matter of the pursuer's claim.
"The pursuer is unaware of the extent to which the female officers... were acting under direct orders of Malcolm and the extent to which they were acting on their own initiative. The actions of Malcolm were motivated by malice, on account of the unnecessary and aggressive manner in which they were carried out."
At p. 15A, with reference to the defender's averments in answer, it is admitted that the decision to proceed with the Petition Warrant was at the instance of the Crown Office, and that the pursuer made no complaint about the manner of the search at the time. At p. 15B, the precise communications among senior officers regarding the manner in which the Petition Warrant was to be executed are stated to be not known and not admitted. From p. 15C the averments continue inter alia as follows:-
"It is further explained and averred that it is standard and almost invariable practice, when a Police Officer is to be charged with an offence, that they are asked to attend a Police Office or Court for that purpose. Arrest of a suspect can be effected without actual apprehension of that suspect. In the event that it is unlikely that a suspect may try to abscond....(such) a practice is competent, proper and reasonable. A suspect should not be apprehended, even in exercise of a warrant, unless there is good reason to do so. Reference is made to the terms of Section 17 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967. There was no possibility of the pursuer destroying evidence, the charge being one of perjury. There was no reason to assume that she would fail to or refuse to attend. Had she been given such notice she would have attended and would have been able to obtain legal representation. The method of arresting and charging her was wholly unnecessary and humiliating."
At p. 16C it is averred that if there had been concern that the pursuer might inflict harm upon herself, that could have been obviated by supervision as opposed to a wholly unnecessary search. To treat the pursuer as "any other member of the public" by subjecting her to the (treatment complained of) is said to have been wholly unnecessary.
"The manner of arrest and detention and search of the pursuer was wholly unnecessary in the circumstances and amounted to an invasion of her privacy and liberty and an assault upon the pursuer by all three officers responsible therefor."
It is then averred:-
"At all material times, Malcolm was acting in the course of his duties and the defender is therefore liable to the pursuer to make reparation to her. To the extent that those other officers were not acting under direct orders of Malcolm (the extent of which is now known to the pursuer) the defender is liable for their actions in the course of their duties."
These averments are repeated and amplified at p. 26B/C. The only attempt to specify malice in this Condescendence is against Detective Superintendent Malcolm, although all of the officers' actings are described as "wholly unnecessary" or in similar terms.
"The question of law in the case is whether, assuming the act to have been within the competence of the defender as Chief-Constable, it is essential that the act should have been done maliciously and without probable cause before liability can attach to the defender as for a legal wrong.
I think that this question requires an affirmative answer, and indeed that it is concluded against the pursuer on the authority of Beaton v Ivory (1887) 14R 1057. In that case the Sheriff of Inverness had directed the arrest of all the inhabitants of the township of Herbista, Skye, ... there having been a deforcement and a riot. Prima facie that was an act of great extravagance, even though the facts disclosed that the disturbance had been widespread and that the township was relatively small. But the importance of the case lies in the law that was laid down. It was clearly and explicitly affirmed that civil liability will not attach to a public official for an act done on the pursuance of his official duty, unless the act was done maliciously - that is from a dishonest motive - so as to amount to an abuse of official power. Lord President Inglis made plain the ratio of the rule in these words (at p. 1062): "It is for the benefit of the public, and for the interests of justice and good government that public officers acting in the exercise of their duty should be surrounded by a very considerable protection"......
In Hill v Campbell (1905 8F 220)... Lord President Dunedin said this (at p.223): "The case was simply one of an arrest and a charge made by ordinary police-constables acting admittedly in the scope of their duty, and in a place where they had a right to make arrests and charges. Doubtless, if they did that without probable cause and in order to gratify their own spite, they would be liable to an action of damages, but unless malice and want of probable cause were proved against them the action could not succeed".....
Without entering upon further detailed examination of authority, the law, as I understand it, may be summarised in these propositions:
(1) An act is prima facie within the competence of the public official doing or authorising it when it is the kind of act that is within his ordinary duty to discharge.
(2) When a public official does an act that is prima facie within his ordinary duty, there is a presumption that he has acted within his authority.
(3) This presumption is not absolute, but may be rebutted by showing that the act was unrelated to any duty arising on the particular occasion, in which case the act ceases to be within the authority of competence of the public official and becomes unlawful.
(4) Where an act is within the competence, no civil liability arises from the doing of the act, unless it can be shown that the act was done maliciously and without probable cause..."
Similar observations were made by Lord President Clyde in Hester v MacDonald & Others 1961 SLT 414, at p. 420, and the need for malice to overcome a wide presumption of legitimacy was further confirmed by the First Division in Ward v Chief Constable, Strathclyde Police 1991 SLT 292. More recently, these authorities were followed by Lord Kingarth in Woodward v Chief Constable, Fife Constabulary 1998 SLT 1342 after an extensive review of the case-law in this area. In the course of that review, his Lordship inter alia doubted the validity of certain decisions in which the fundamental principles laid down in Beaton and Robertson did not appear to have been drawn to the Court's attention, and in which the requirement to aver and prove malice had not been addressed.