High Court rules that procedural defects should not defeat claim involving man detained by police

Monday 31 July 2023

Stephen Simblet KC of the Garden Court Chambers Civil Liberties and Human Rights and Mental Health Law Teams acted for the Claimant, instructed by Chris Topping of Broudie Jackson Canter.

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Stephen Simblet KC persuaded the High Court that a claim for false imprisonment and other wrongs should still proceed, even though the application for leave under section 139 Mental Health Act 1983 had been made to a Master rather than a High Court judge, and the opposing side had not been fully notified of the application.

The judge (Mrs Justice Hill) decided that the claim could proceed and that the police’s arguments about the substantive claim needed to be looked at in the context of various factual disputes about the circumstances of the detention, and that it is for the police to justify the powers of detention deployed.

Read the full judgment here: Upadrasta v The Commissioner of the City of London Police [2023] EWHC 1853

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