Keith Patten considers the liability of the police
The police are, in many ways, archetypal “deep pocket” defendants. The attempt to impose liability on them for a failure to prevent crime is, therefore, not surprising.
The fact that those attempts seem most often to fail does not prevent others seeking to navigate themselves through the narrow straits of liability. The Court of Appeal has recently been faced with another such claim, in Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales [2012] EWCA Civ 981, [2012] All ER (D) 216 (Jul).
To say that the facts are relatively straightforward is not to diminish the tragedy of the outcome. The claim was brought on behalf of the family and estate of a young woman.
The deceased had made a 999 call in the early hours to report that her former partner had hit her and, having left, had threatened to return to hit her again. She had further said to the control room operator that he had threatened to kill her, although there
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