Kandamwala v Cambridgeshire Constabulary HQS

LADY JUSTICE GLOSTER: This is a renewed application by Mr Lawrence Kandamwala for permission to appeal against the judgment of His Honour Judge Yelton sitting in the Cambridge County Court whereby he dismissed the Applicant's claim for wrongful arrest and racial discrimination. The Applicant makes a number of complaints about the substance of the judgment and also the procedure.

At this stage, I have sufficient concerns about the judgment and about the procedure that I am going to adjourn the application for permission to a date in April at the start of the next term and reserve the matter to me. I do that because I think it is necessary for the Applicant to obtain a transcript of the hearing before the judge.

The Cambridge County Court has written a letter confirming that, although the case was ordered pursuant to an order of Deputy District Judge Roger dated 3 July 2014 to be listed in a trial window from 8 December 2014 to 9 March 2015, with a time estimate of two days, in fact according to the information from the County Court the hearing started at 11.32, finished at 12.59, then resumed at 14.10 and concluded at 14.34.

The Applicant tells me that he was prevented from making an opening statement, that the first thing that happened was that the two policemen went into the witness box and were examined in chief by counsel and then he was examined. There were no statements or closing submissions or anything of that sort. Mr Kandamwala tells me that, when the parties came back to court at 14.10 the same afternoon, the judge immediately proceeded to give judgment.

Mr Kandamwala complains that he was not given sufficient time to comment on the Defendant's, Cambridge Constabulary, evidence and, particularly, to present argument or explore why it was that the CCTV evidence had not been obtained earlier, which could have established that he was in fact the victim of a racially motivated attack and why, as Mr Kandamwala puts it, there were certain suspicious points about the police notes of the incident.

The Applicant further submits, along with a lot of other complaints, that he was not allowed to put his case to the court because the judge kept interrupting, and that this was the case when he tried to cross-examine the prosecution witnesses. He complains that this created actual or apparent bias of the judge against the Applicant.

There are other points which may be relevant as to my decision as to whether at the next hearing I give permission to appeal. The first is that the judge does not appear to have considered the full provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and does not appear to have addressed the question as to whether the police had reasonable grounds when they arrested the Applicant for believing that for any of the reasons mentioned in sub-section 5 of section 24 it was necessary to arrest the Applicant.

It appears from the defence that section 24(5)(e) was relied upon, namely to allow for prompt and effective investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person in question. Again, there does not seem to have been any argument, or focus by the judge, as to the question whether, given all the circumstances and particularly the conflicting evidence, it was necessary to arrest the Applicant in order to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the alleged offence of sexual assault or of the conduct of the person in question.

Because of those concerns, I think it is necessary for this court, in considering the application for permission, to see the transcript of the hearing before the judge. Obviously, the court already has the transcript of the judgment, but I direct that the Applicant is to obtain from the Cambridgeshire County Court a transcript of the hearing which took place on 4 March between 11.32 and 12.59 and then at 14.10 concluding at 14.34. It is not necessary for there to be a further transcript of the judgment because obviously I have that in approved form already. My present order is that the Applicant is himself to bear the costs of obtaining that transcript.

The matter is therefore adjourned, subject to the associate checking with listing, to Tuesday, 19 April.