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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Bedfordshire Police v Cheryldeen Shantha Liversidge [2001] EWCA Civ 1985 (11 December 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/1985.html Cite as: [2001] EWCA Civ 1985

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
CIVIL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

		The Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Tuesday 11 December 2001

Tuesday 11 December 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE SEDLEY: Mrs Laura Cox QC comes before us this morning with Miss Omambala to renew an application which I was minded on the papers to reject. Because the issues are so lucidly set out, first in the judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, then again in Miss Omambala's skeleton argument, there is no need to rehearse them now.
2. Having heard Mrs Cox this morning, I have come to the conclusion that there may well be viable arguments capable of succeeding and not fully addressed by the EAT. That may well not be a criticism of the EAT, because it may very well be that with the case in Mrs Cox's hands, the argument itself has undergone recasting.
3. Essentially, the problem is that which Lord Justice Waller put to Mrs Cox and she accepted: namely that if the EAT is right, the very source of the great majority of acts of discrimination against serving officers within a police force, both racial and sexual, will not be caught because they will not be committed by the Chief Constable or by the Police Authority but by officers lower down the hierarchy.
4. It is obviously a question of very great public importance whether or not a chief constable is answerable in such circumstances for acts of discrimination committed by his or her officers. It may be that, notwithstanding what I wrote in refusing permission, section 75(1)(b) of the Race Relations Act gives the necessary purchase upon a case of the present kind, although it will have to be considered whether the office of constable is a statutory office nowadays. It is historically a common law office but it may well be that it is now subsumed in statute, and that constitutional question may have to be addressed. It is of continuing importance because the amendment and the filling of the gap by the Race Relations Act 2000 in relation to the 1976 Act has not been extended to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and there, it appears, the same gap continues.
5. There is also the question whether, independently of the equality legislation, section 88 of the Police Act 1996, and its predecessors in earlier Police Acts, by itself produces a liability of the Chief Constable for what, in Mrs Cox's submission, is a statutory tort and therefore as fully within the vicarious liability principle as common law torts.
6. All of these matters, it seems to me, afford a compelling reason why the appeal should be heard, particularly since we have been told today that Mrs Liversidge will, if she obtains permission to appeal, have the backing and indemnity of the Police Federation funds - something which, if I may say so, seems to me entirely creditable. I am also in a fair way to be persuaded that the appeal would have a real prospect of success, but I pass no judgment upon that issue because it is sufficient for present purposes that, in my judgment at least, it is an appropriate case for grant of permission to appeal.
7. LORD JUSTICE WALLER: I agree.
ORDER: Application allowed. Appeal to be heard as soon as possible with a time estimate of a day and a half to two days. (Order not part of approved judgment)