Latest Cases

Sentence – Mandatory life sentence. The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum period of 18 years, for murder. He applied for a reduction in the minimum term. The Queen's Bench Division, in allowing the application, held that the defendant had satisfied the relevant criteria as to his exceptional progress in prison. Accordingly, the minimum term was reduced to 16 and a half years. 

Contract – Illegality. The employee had been allegedly trafficked from Nigeria to the United Kingdom by the employer to work illegally as an au pair. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, set aside an award of compensation granted in the employee's favour for unlawful discrimination in relation to her dismissal by the employer, having held that the illegality of the contract of employment had formed a material part of the employee's complaint and that to uphold it would be to condone the illegality. The employee appealed. The Supreme Court, allowing the appeal, held that it would be a breach of the UK's international obligations under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings for its law to cause the employee's complaint to be defeated by the defence of illegality. The case was remitted to the tribunal in respect of a complaint in relation to pre-dismissal harassment. 

Dentist – Professional misconduct. The appellant dentist was alleged to have made inappropriate and dishonest claims in respect of payments from the NHS. A jury acquitted the appellant of fraud and theft, but the respondent General Dental Council proceeded to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him. The GDC refused to stay proceedings as an abuse of process and the appellant was subsequently erased from the register, and he appealed. The Divisional Court, in dismissing the appeal, held that there had been no error of law in the decision not to stay proceedings and there was no basis for challenging the outcome of the proceedings. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. A master ordered that judgment having been entered in default against the defendant, the matters pleaded in the particulars of claim were to stand as conclusive on the issues of breach of duty and causation there pleaded and it was therefore not open to the defendant to take issue with causation since that was a matter which, as far as he was concerned, was no longer in issue after the entering of the default judgment. The Queen's Bench Division allowed the defendant's appeal and ordered that the defendant was not precluded from advancing the causation arguments set out in the defendant's counter-schedule. 

Employment – Negligence. The claimant was employed by the defendant. She alleged that in the course of her employment with the defendant she suffered occupational stress which developed into a psychiatric condition leading to her becoming an inpatient at a mental health hospital and seriously continuing mental ill health. The defendant denied the various allegations. The Queen's Bench Division held that on the facts of the case, no duty of care arose and it was the pressures of the job and the claimant's own perception of the workplace conflict with the professor that was one of the causes of the stress she suffered at work there was no foreseeable risk of injury, that if a duty on the part of the employers had arisen there was no breach, and causation had not been established. 

Pharmacist – Misconduct – Appropriate sanction. Court of Session: In a statutory appeal by a pharmacist, who was convicted of domestic violence offences, against a decision to remove his name from the Register of Pharmacists rather than impose some lesser sanction, the court held that it was likely that the General Pharmaceutical Council's Fitness to Practise Committee did not consider the possibility of suspension for 12 months with an indication that that should be extended for a longer period, and on that basis the committee's decision as to sanction was flawed. 

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. The claimant was awarded £5,000 in general damages. He suffered a permanent scar over the lateral aspect of his left eyebrow which was 1 cm in length and slightly indented. He also suffered headaches and travel anxiety which resolved four months post-accident and abrasions to the left knee, ankle and hip, which resolved two weeks post-accident. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The respondent Latvian judicial authority permitted the appellant to come to the United Kingdom during the period of a suspended sentence, imposed on her for assault. Her suspended sentence was later activated in full, at a hearing in which the appellant was not present, and the judicial authority sought her extradition to Latvia. The district judge ordered her extradition and the appellant appealed. The Administrative Court, in allowing the appeal, held that extradition would not be a proportionate interference with the rights of the appellant and her family under art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Damages – Personal injury. SK died from mesothelioma following exposure to asbestos whilst working in a prison. The claimant was her widower and the administrator of her estate who brought an action agains the defendant, Ministry of Defence. Liability was admitted and there was a trial to decide certain heads of damages inclusing general damages for pain suffering and loss of amenity. The Queen's Bench Division arrived at a figure of £80,000 for general damages, with a total award of £642,972.51. 

Immigration – Asylum seeker. The claimants sought judicial review of the defendant Secretary of State's refusal to exercise her discretion under arts 3(2) and 15 of Regulation (EC) 343/2003 (the Dublin II Regulation) to consider the claimants' asylum claims in the United Kingdom. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the application, held that the decisions taken under the Dublin II Regulation were not susceptible to challenge by judicial review proceedings, save where the enforcement of the decision would lead to inhuman or degrading treatment, which was not alleged in the present case.