Police Regulatory Law
POLICE REGULATORY LAW EXPERTISE
CONTACT THE CLERKS
What does Regulatory Police Law Include?
Members of St Pauls Chambers have vast experience of the full gamut of police law matters, including:
- Bringing or defending judicial review proceedings on behalf of police forces as well as individual police officers.
- Advising on and conducting litigation relating to police pensions disputes.
- Firearms licensing.
- Civil confiscation proceedings.
- Inquests.
- Police misconduct cases (both presenting and defending).
- Conducting civil actions against the police (both for claimants and defendants).
- Employment law (including disability discrimination claims brought by police officers).
- The provision of generic advice (topics on which members have advised range, for example, from powers of arrest to the way in which written accounts are made by officers following the use of lethal force).
- Representing individual police officers accused of criminal wrongdoing.
Members of Chambers also have experience of acting in cases involving the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), have acted both for and against that organisation, and have a firm understanding of the regulatory framework under which it operates.
The Police Law Team at St Pauls Chambers
The team is led by Sam Green QC, whose recent police law experience has spanned from acting on behalf of the Police Federation of England and Wales in the recent Hillsborough Inquests to conducting a judicial review on behalf of a Chief Constable on the proper interpretation of particular provisions in the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006 (R (Fisher) v Chief Constable of Northumbria [2017] ICR 1106). Our team offers strength in depth at every level of seniority, and is admirably equipped to provide a consistently excellent service right across the disparate areas identified above as coming under the broad description of police law. However complicated or simple a police law issue is, in respect of which a client wishes to consider instructing a member of St Pauls Chambers to advise or act, we will be able to identify and offer a barrister at the correct level of seniority and experience to assist.
What is Police Law?
Police law is a shorthand term for the multidisciplinary and broad range of legal issues relating to the police service and to individual police officers. Much police law is governed by statue supplemented by the host of regulations governing the police service, many of which give rise to challenging issues of interpretation. The stakes are often high in actions against the police, both in financial and reputational terms for police forces, or individual officers, and so our police law team is acutely aware of the stresses involved in such cases, and the consequent need for empathy towards the stakeholders.
