Nov 19
A police officer developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of various incidents which took place during his police service. The selected medical practitioner to whom he was referred, pursuant to regulation H1(2) of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 (the predecessor of and equivalent to regulation 30(2) of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006), concluded that he was disabled and that the disablement was likely to be permanent. Consequently, in June 2005, the officer was required to retire. He made no claim at that time for an injury pension and the police pension authority did not refer to the selected medical practitioner the further questions, relevant to entitlement to an injury pension, of whether the disablement was the result of an injury received in the execution of duty and the degree of that disablement. Subsequently, in May 2016, the officer made a claim for an injury pension, pursuant to regulation 11 of the 2006 Regulations. A second selected medical practitioner answered the additional questions in the officer’s favour and, in July 2017, the pension authority awarded an injury pension backdated to May 2016, the date of the claim. The officer appealed to the Crown Court, pursuant to regulation 34 of the 2006 Regulations, against the failure to backdate the award to the date on which he had been required to retire. The judge accepted that he had jurisdiction under regulation 34 to determine the appeal and ordered the injury pension to be backdated to 2005, with interest. The police authority sought judicial review of that decision on the grounds that (1) a claim for a backdated payment was not a claim for a “larger award” so as to attract the regulation 34 jurisdiction, but related only to the period in respect of which the award was to be paid; (2) in any event, there was no retrospective entitlement to an injury award; and (3) there was no power under the 2006 Regulations to award interest and no other legal or equitable basis for interest to be awarded. The judge in the High Court dismissed the challenges, save that she set aside the award of interest on the ground that the Crown Court had no power in that regard. The pension authority appealed on the grounds that (1) the Crown Court had not had jurisdiction under regulation 34 to hear the appeal and (2), in any event, the officer was not entitled to a back-dated injury pension. The police officer cross-appealed on the question of interest.
On the appeal and the cross-appeal—
Held, appeal dismissed and cross-appeal allowed. (1) that, on a true construction of section 6 of the Police Pensions Act 1976 and regulation 34 of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006, the second jurisdictional limb under regulation 34, concerning a refusal to admit “a larger award than that granted” related to the total amount of a pension award and not simply to the amount of the annual ongoing pension. Nothing in the statutory scheme indicated that the Crown Court was, in the context of a regulation 34 appeal, to be deprived of jurisdiction in relation to questions arising as to the backdating of a pension award and as to whether the pension authority had correctly identified the date on which the pension entitlement arose. Accordingly, the Crown Court had had jurisdiction under regulation 34 to determine the appeal (paras 25–32, 59, 60).
(2) It was relatively clear from the provisions of the 2006 Regulations that the pension authority was required to look back to ascertain when the police officer became disabled to determine how far back the injury pension was payable, save that it could not be earlier than the date of retirement. If it was after retirement, that would be the start date, unless that date could not be ascertained, in which case it would be the date of the claim. In the present case, since the police officer was required to retire because of disablement, the answer appeared to be straightforward and obvious: the injury pension was payable from 5 June 2005. The starting point was regulation 11, which set out in clear and unambiguous terms the statutory entitlement (“shall be entitled”) to an injury award when certain conditions were met (“ceases or has ceased to be a member of a police force and is permanently disabled as the result of an injury received without his own default in the execution of his duty”). Regulation 43 addressed the period in relation to which the pension, once entitlement was established, was payable (“in respect of each year from the date of retirement”, subject to regulation 11(2)), and the manner in which it was to be paid (“in advance at such reasonable intervals as the police pensions authority may ... determine”). It did not make any provision about entitlement. It was plainly not right that regulation 43(1) was designed to ensure that pensions were not payable for periods before retirement: that was obviously not an issue because the basic entitlement only arose on ceasing to be a member of the force (regulation 11(1)). The true purpose of regulation 43(1) was to provide, consistently with regulation 11(1), that once entitlement was established, the pension would prima facie be payable for life from the date of retirement, even if that involved paying substantial arrears. It followed that the judge in the Crown Court had been right to conclude that the police officer was entitled to back-dated injury pension (paras 35, 41–43, 44, 49–50, 59, 60).
(3) The power conferred on the Crown Court by regulation 34 to make such orders as appeared to it “to be just” was suggestive of a wide discretion, and could not be read as limiting the jurisdiction to merely affirming the amounts payable according to the formula set out in the Regulations, but rather had to be read as giving the Crown Court a power to make such other orders it saw fit to ensure that justice was done. The obvious and usual order a court made to do justice when determining what money was due was the award of interest, thereby adjusting the value of the award to reflect the time value of money (and inflation) and so ensuring that a claimant had not been unjustly prejudiced by being kept from their money. Although regulation 34 could not be read as giving the Crown Court power to make an order inconsistent with the regulations from which the power was derived, there was no difficulty in the Crown Court having jurisdiction to make a well-recognised ancillary order to give effect to the rights recognised by the regulations but denied by the pension authority. Accordingly, the judge n the Crown Court had power to award interest and, in the present case it had plainly been just to do so (paras 51, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60).
Dijen Basu QC (instructed by Force Solicitor, South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield) for the police pension authority.
David Lock QC (instructed by Slater and Gordon Lawyers) for the police officer.
The defendant did not appear and was not represented.