[2007] EWHC 2842 (QB)

If information given to an arresting officer by a superior was insufficient to supply to the arresting officer reasonable grounds for suspicion of the arrested person, it would not avail the arresting officer to claim that he thought that his superior probably did have other information justifying the arrest that he had not been informed of. If it were otherwise the safeguard against arbitrary arrest and detention of which the court spoke in O'Hara v Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary [1997] A.C. 286 would not exist and it would be only a short step from justifying an arrest on the basis simply of "obeying orders" which was so emphatically rejected in that case.

QBD (McCombe J)

30/11/2007