Cowan and Another v Chief Constable for Avon [2001]

The police do not owe a duty of care to a tenant who has been unlawfully evicted, unless there has been breach of a court order.

A tenant had an assured tenancy of a room in a shared house. He received a letter from his landlord asking him to leave, but the tenant did not.
One afternoon two months later, two men went to the property and told the tenant that he had to leave by 6pm that day. They threatened to break his legs if he did not leave, so the tenant called the police. Two police officers attended, and told the tenant that he should call them again if the men returned.

At about 6pm, four men arrived and began removing the tenant’s belongings from the property. The tenant called the police, and the same two officers attended. They found several of the tenant’s possessions in the street, and neighbours congregating nearby to watch. There was an excited atmosphere, and the tenant was angry and upset.
The police called for backup as they were concerned that they were outnumbered, but said that it was not urgent. The police officers were informed by one of the men that he had recently bought the property and, via solicitors’ letters and verbal requests, had asked the tenant to leave. The police contacted the tenant’s original landlord to confirm this.

When two more police officers arrived, the tenant told them that he was being unlawfully evicted. However, they were unsure who had legal rights to the property, and thought that reinstating the tenant would lead to violence. Instead, an officer advised the new landlord and the tenant to seek legal advice, and said that the officers would remain in attendance in order to prevent breach of the peace.

The new landlord was prosecuted for an offence under s. 1(3A) Protection from Eviction Act 1977 (PEA 1977).
The tenant then brought an action against the Chief Constable for negligence, on the basis that the police had a duty of care to take steps to prevent a crime being committed under the PEA 1977.
He claimed that the Chief Constable was negligent either due to liability for the breach of duty by the police officers involved, or for a failure to provide training on evictions.

HELD:
The Court of Appeal found that s. 1 PEA 1977 does not create an arrestable offence under s. 24 Police and criminal Evidence Act 1984, and also that under s. 6 PEA 1977 the police are not specified as one of the authorities that can institute proceedings under the Act.

There was not a duty of care unless the tenant could establish that a special relationship existed between himself and the police, and that a duty of care arose from this.
In this case, the police had a duty to prevent a breach of the peace and to prevent any physical attack on the tenant, but it did not automatically follow that their attendance at the property also created a duty to prevent the eviction.

Citation: Cowan and Another v Chief Const. for Avon [2001] EWCA Civ 1699