Karout v Stratton & Ors

THE COURT : The Court proposes to refuse leave in this matter.

The summons for leave to appeal raises issues in respect of two separate warrants, which will be refered to as the first and the second warrant. The first warrant was found by her Honour Justice Fullerton to have been executed in an irregular manner, but the irregularity was of a technical nature and involved a failure by the police officers, by some seconds, to announce at the door of the premises that they were police and that they were intending to execute the warrant. It was likely that any evidence obtained following the irregularly executed warrant would be subject to challenge, as being illegally obtained evidence.

However, there is a discretion under s 138 of the Evidence Act 1995 to admit illegal evidence, and given the highly technical nature of the breach by the police officers, the question of the admission of that evidence can be properly considered by the Magistrate, and we would not consider that it would be appropriate to grant leave to appeal from her Honour’s determination in that regard.

The second warrant raises different considerations. In that case, the police officers failed to give a complete Notice to Occupiers. A second page of that Notice was missing. The consequence of the second page being missing was that the document given to the applicant did not contain all the information that must be obtained in an Notice to Occupiers pursuant to s 67 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002.

It is not apparent, however, whether some irregularity in the service of a Notice to Occupiers makes the execution of the warrant invalid, or otherwise makes evidence obtained pursuant to the execution of the warrant illegal, but, even assuming that it did, an application could also be made under s 138 of the Evidence Act for the admission of the evidence. Factors that might be relevant in the exercise of that discretion would include whether or not the applicant was prejudiced in any real way by the fact that there was a page missing from the document. We consider that to be a matter for the Magistrate.

We do not consider that this is an appropriate matter in which to grant leave to appeal. Accordingly, the summons for leave to appeal is dismissed with costs.