Candice Lecky's Argument Against Ruling

The police were informed of a domestic issue at the home of Candice Lecky, the claimant’s girlfriend. Mr. Walker was accused of punching miss Lecky and the police had come over to investigate. The events that followed are recorded differently by Mr. Walker and PC Adams. Nonetheless, Mr. Walker was arrested a few minutes later and taken to the police station were he was detained for another 7 hours before being released . Mr. Walker was charged with “assault of a police officer in the execution of his duty” but was acquitted on the grounds that PC Walker had unlawfully infringed upon his freedom of movement.

Two years after the trial in Camberwell Green Magistrates Court, Mr. Walker issued a claim asking for damages for “false imprisonment, …show more content…
Ruling in favour of the police will no doubt open floodgates for policemen to exercise their powers beyond what their mandate would allow. In Lord Bingham’s formulation of the rule of law his sixth sub rule was “…ministers and public officers ..must exercise the powers conferred on them….without exceeding the limits of such powers”. This can be taken to mean the police should not be allowed to use their powers to intimidate certain classes of people or have a bias towards specific groups in society. In other words, “the laws of the land should apply equally to all”. It is not out of the question to suggest that there could have been a bias that PC Adams had towards Mr. Walker that made him feel as though he could intimidate Mr. …show more content…
It is shocking that this could have been allowed to fly under the radar. If it was agreed in appeal that there was indeed a case of false imprisonment, coupled with the physical injury Mr. Walker faced at the hands of the police, how then could the damages be set at a meagre 5 pounds?. False imprisonment involves interfering with a person’s liberty which cannot be valued at only 5 pounds. In R v Governor of HMP Brockhill ex parte Evans (No 2), Lord Woolf addressed the issue on damages for false imprisonment by stating,”there can be two elements to an award of damages for false imprisonment, the first being compensation for loss of liberty and the second being the damage to reputation, humiliation, shock and injury to feelings resulting from the loss of liberty”. If we use this as a measure, not only was Mr. Walker entitled to compensation for the tort of false imprisonment but he should have been compensated for injury claims as