PI Brief Update

Misfeasance in public office: PI claim against four police institutions reinstated - Michael Brooks Reid, Temple Garden Chambers

20/05/26. Michael Brooks Reid discusses the recent Court of Appeal decision in Van Buuren v Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Constabularyand Ors [2026] EWCA Civ 391, in which the Master of the Rolls gave a striking judgment reinstating a litigant in person’s claims for misfeasance in public office arising out of an allegedly falsified police investigation into a road traffic accident.

Facts

In August 2013, the claimant fell from, or was knocked off his bicycle near Cambridge. He lost consciousness for over thirty minutes and was seriously injured. He had no recollection of the accident.

Some minutes after the accident, two officers (Officers A and B), attended the scene. A collision report produced on behalf of the Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Constabularies concluded that the claimant had fallen from his bicycle by slipping on gravel and that there had been no witnesses to the accident. The report included an unsigned statement by a “Mr D”, said to have been driving immediately behind the claimant. Mr D’s statement appeared to be in Officer A’s handwriting.

The claimant made a formal complaint under the Police Reform Act 2002, asserting that the Cambridgeshire Constabulary had failed to properly investigate the accident. That complaint was rejected and an appeal to the (now) Independent Office for Police Conduct (“IOPC”) was dismissed.

The following year, the claimant tracked down “Mrs C”, who told him: (i) that she had witnessed the accident; (ii) that a car had clipped his bicycle causing him to fall; (iii) that she had relayed this account to the officers at the scene; and (iv) that she was never contacted for a witness statement.

The claimant sued the three Chief Constables as well as the IOPC under the tort of misfeasance in public office, alleging that Constable A deliberately falsified the investigation to conceal the collision. He sought summary judgment against all defendants and a strike out of the Constabularies’ defence.

The Law

The tort of misfeasance in public office requires a claimant to establish that the defendant: (i) acted in the exercise of a public power or duty; (ii) acted with malice; and (iii) caused damage to the claimant. Malice may be “targeted” (an intention to harm the particular claimant) or “untargeted” (knowledge that the defendant has no power to act as it does and that they are likely to cause harm to a class of persons to which the claimant belongs): Three Rivers District Council v Governor and Company of The Bank of England [2003] 2 AC 1.

High Court decision

Sweeting J struck out most of the claimant’s claims. He permitted the claim against the Cambridgeshire Constabulary (D1) to proceed limited to the allegation that Constable A had deliberately falsified the investigation. He refused the claimant’s applications for summary judgment and strike out of the Constabularies’ defence and ordered the claimant to pay the costs of D2, D3 and D4.

The claimant appealed and D1 cross-appealed.

Court of Appeal

Before a highly experienced bench of the Court of Appeal (Vos MR, Asplin and Elisabeth Laing LJJ), the claimant appeared in person, the three Chief Constables (D1-D3) were represented by leading Counsel, and the IOPC (D4) was represented by Counsel. Following some probing questioning by the MR, Counsel for D1-D3 sought an adjournment to take instructions. Perhaps sensing the direction of the judicial winds, he returned to inform the Court that D1 was withdrawing its cross-appeal and would consent to reinstating all claims against D1-D3 and reversing the costs order. Counsel for D4 made the same concession.

The Court was therefore only required to determine the claimant’s appeal against the refusal of summary judgment and strike out of the defendants’ Defence. The Court dismissed both appeals, finding that it was impossible to say that the defendants had no real prospect of success.

The Court’s discontent with the defendants’ conduct is plain in the MR’s judgment. However, he acknowledged a number of live issues, none of which could be resolved summarily. These were:

• Whether limitation is to be extended under s.33 of the Limitation Act 1980, the claim having been brought out of time;
• whether the failure to seek witness evidence and the reliance on Mr D’s unsigned and potentially self-serving account reflected an improper motive; and
• causation of the claimant’s psychiatric injury.

The Court found force in the claimant’s submissions that fair trial was no longer possible and that the defendants have had 13 years to put forward a substantive defence but had failed to do so. Nonetheless, the MR concluded that a fair trial remained possible and ordered that the matter be listed for trial in the High Court this year. Public confidence in the police and in the complaints process required that cases of this kind be neither ignored nor “swept under the carpet.”

Comment

Whilst somewhat out of the ordinary for a PI brief update, this is an interesting judgment. Firstly, it is a tribute to our legal system that the Court of Appeal has given proper and careful consideration to the merits of a claim brought by a litigant in person, alleging serious misconduct against respected (and funded) institutions. Secondly, PI claims brought under the tort misfeasance in public office are relatively rare, and it is not hard to see why – the test, particularly the mental element, is a stringent one. However, proper disclosure will now take place, and the case has been earmarked by the country’s most senior civil judge. The defendants will now have to treat the claimant’s allegations seriously. If the case does not now quietly settle, it will be one to watch.

Image ©iStockphoto.com/onfilm