The Court of Appeal today handed down judgment in the case of Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, R (On the Application Of) v Kelly & Anor [2021] EWCA Civ 1699 (19 November 2021)
On the 5th June 2005, Mr Kelly was required to retire as a serving police officer due to permanent disablement from South Yorkshire Police. Whilst Mr Kelly was granted an ill-health pension, the force did not consider whether he was entitled to an injury pension under The Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006 due to the injury being caused on duty. They also did not inform him that he may make an application.
On the 25th July 2017, Mr Kelly became aware of injury pensions, and made an application, which was subsequently granted. South Yorkshire Police however only agreed to apply the pension from the date of the application rather from the date of retirement, a difference of 12 years worth of back pension.
The matter was heard twice, in the Crown Court, where Mr Kelly was successful. South Yorkshire appealed the matter to the Court of Appeal, who today handed down judgment in favour of Mr Kelly. The judgment agreed that Mr Kelly should be paid from the date of retirement and is also entitled to interest on his money.
There are around 12,000 former officers who have injury pensions. Given the general, widespread and persistent mismanagement of the injury award scheme, which IODPA has helped uncover, I have to wonder – just how many of them have been denied their pension rights?
IOD pensioners are, understandably, not at all clued up on their rights. is it too cynical to think that some, perhaps most, forces, prefer it that way?
Aggressive actions by ill-advised Chief Constables such as Mr Kelly faced are idiotic, for all they achieve is more costs, more awareness by pensioners of their rights, and consequently more historic maladministration revealed and challenged.
South Yorkshire IOD pensioners number around 200 at present, and they all would benefit from contacting IODPA, as would any former SY officer who has retired due to injury on duty but who was not granted an injury award.
Once again IODPA and its legal team shine a bright light into the murky world of how Police forces treat their injured retired officers. This court decision is a victory for common sense. South Yorkshire Police should now look deeply into it’s soul (if it’s got one) and publicly announce how much money they wasted on this fruitless appeal so that other forces can take note. You may be the goliaths who expect to win every case, this shows you that with just a small slingshot we took you down. The fight continues, the work of IODPA is not done yet, how many more cases of injustice are out there.
An obviously just and correct result as should have been obvious to S.Y.P from the beginning.
All those at SYP who have remorselessly pursued this though the courts should hang their heads in shame.
Not only have they caused unimaginable years of stress for someone to whom they had a duty of care, they have wasted possibly hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
A great result, but at a heavy cost both personally and to the public.
Great result and justice has been served. Forces use the old chestnut of “protecting public funds”, and yet the cost to the public purse of not one but two cases is in itself a waste of public funds. Those responsible should be held to a account before they do a runner to their gold plated retirement.
Well done to Lloyd Kelly and his family. A Huge win against the upholders of the law, who in this case were told in case 1 by the judge “when the appellant was allowed to remain in ignorance of his rights, to the profit of South Yorkshire Police let us not forget, the Chief Constable was in breach of duty.”
Now I see that the then Chief Constable Stephen Watson has retired. Strange that the former Chief Constable of Staffordshire, Gareth Morgan also resigned just after winning his case against 17 former officers injured on duty in his force. I wonder if this has become Home Office unofficial policy??
Do the job on former officers injured on duty, then you can retire with your big fat pension.
If we can only get other forces to stop abusing their retired injured on duty officers, wasting thousands and thousands of public money despite the case having no real prospect of success, and those concerned in the defective decision making in forces such as South Yorkshire, Northumbria, and others who jumped onto the band wagon of reviews equal savings to their force budgets are starting to see no savings are made and actually cases like this open the doors up to others who have suffered this treatment to do something about it!!
Huge thanks to Lloyd for standing up for his rights, and to the new Chief Constable at South Yorkshire Police, Lauren Poultney a plea to stop doing more damage to your former IOD’s and look after them, not abuse them.
It angers me that Mr KELLY has had to go through these unnecessary hurdles and legal challenges brought by the self serving CC and the self righteous PPA who both are seemingly unaccountable and could not care less as they themselves have nothing to loose. Mr KELLY has finally won so there are losers; the CC, the PPA and the ultimately public purse which has to foot the bill for the incompetence of the CC and PPA. The public purse is not a bottomless pit which supports the blatant incompetence of these decision makers who seemingly only did a limited analysis of the consequences of their decisions to appeal and later go to JR, yet like gambling addicts the decision makers tried to bluff the situation to the very end with no real chance of any victory and the monies supporting their frivolous action were provided by the public purse. Lets see if the PCC will bring these decision makers to task not only for their disregard of the public purse but also for the years of unnecessary stress THEY exposed Mr KELLY to, they are clearly not fit for the purpose and should be dispensed with however it is likely as usual within the police service that they will remain in post and said incompetence rewarded.
Brilliant result! Congratulations to Lloyd and his family. This should have been settled long ago but as seems to be the norm, SYP have dragged it out to the bitter end.
If Force budgets are stretched so far that they feel they have difficulty paying injured officers what they are entitled to, maybe it would be a good idea for CC’s to collectively make the case to central government for an increase to cover what is after all a duty of care. In an ideal world where CC’s genuinely cared for the welfare of their officers this should have already happened. After all, the injury regulations were put in place by central government for a reason and place as much of a financial obligation on each Force as every other aspect of policing.
Hopefully this case will make a few of them start to think again, but I won’t be holding my breath…….
Justice has been seen to have been done. Now the individuals who tried to defend the indefensible need a large boot applied on their way out the door.
That is such good news for LLoyd. It must have been a terrible time going through the process for him and his family . Hopefully now he can move on.
I find it quite difficult to believe that SYP appealed the first judgement and didn’t just hold their hands up and concede they were wrong. Will they now disclose to the public how much this has all cost in legal fees. The PCC should now hold a full investigation and make public who made these decisions and on what justifiable grounds
How many other former SYP officers are out there who should have been paid an injury pension?
It wouldn’t surprise me that South Yorkshire Police had cynically calculated that the money spent on this case would not be wasted, as the huge stress they piled onto Mr Kelly and his family would dissuade others from standing up for their pension rights. It SYP thought that, then they are going to be proved wrong.
Lloyd Kelly is a hero who suffered terrible injury by criminals that ended his career.
He was entitled to an injury award and for reasons of error or malfeasance his force failed to inform him of his entitlement or even the existence of the Police Injury Regulations for which they are obligated by the regulations to do.
They owe him much more that just his injury award but no, this contemptible Chief Constable wriggles and squirms through 2 appeals which he looses wasting public (other peoples ) money in the process.
Well done Mr Kelly for your tenacity and bravery in fighting for your rights. So sorry that they put you through this
Best wishes to you and yours.
The author, Peter James once said in his book, ‘Need you dead’, that “Wearing a uniform does not protect you from trauma”.
However, Chief Constables and the wider public expect Police Officers, either in uniform, or plain clothes, to put themselves in danger in the course of their duties, protecting the public.
It seems then to be a disgrace, that so many Chief Constables are not prepared to honour that commitment, when one of their officers is injured at no fault of their own.
This is a complete lack of moral fibre and any Chief Contable that does this, (and unfortunately, there are too many that do), should be viewed with utter contempt.
To then use the very force budget that could be paying the Officer, to fight him in the Courts, multiple times, over what he rightly deserves, only increases that contempt by a factor of ten!
Even worse is the fact that many forces go out of their way not to inform injured officers of their rights, hoping that this will also save money!
Well in this case has shown the folly of this false economy and it has now finally come back as big karma for South York’s Police. It’s a shame that it is their taxpayers who will now pick up this financial burden, rather than the individuals concerned.
The SYP PCC should now investigate this further and take the appropriate actions against those who decided to waste this vast amount of public money on such a folly, bit I’m not holding my breath!
I’m sorry that Mr. Kelly has had to fight and wait so long for justice. He gets my full compassion for what he and his family have had to endure and I hope he can now look forward for a secure future.
To those Chief Constables out there who believed this was a legitimate activity, I say “Be careful”. Although there is no duty on them to inform injured officers of their rights, failure to do so is now going to be very costly, if ignored.
I trust that the other injured officers (and there are others), throughout the UK, who have suffered from this trick, become aware of this judgement and seek their justice too.
I know IODPA and it’s members, including me, will be sharing this message far and wide, so hopefully, this will not be the only judgement providing justice to IOD’s.
Cheating Chief Constables, be warned……your next!
I totally agree. However, whilst the Organisation itself may not have to inform serving officers of their options under these circumstances (if that is the situation) I will, once again, for the nth time, ask the question:! Where were The PFEW and NARPO when they were needed . Had they have been there for these Officers, then there would have been no void needing to be filled by a third organisation. The IODPA., in the absence of the first 2, have done more than anyone for the benefit, health, welfare and safety of those Injured Officers who were simply abandoned by their former Most Senior Officers!
In my time, I have been a member of all 3 and remain a member of 2 so have seen this situation from within since it’s inception. I have tried to do something about the first 2 and failed (for too many reasons to go into at this time). Thankfully I was introduced to the IODPA early on and have seen this group go from strength to strength by ‘simply’ using the proper, reasonable and lawful methods so deplored, ignored and manipulated by ‘others’.
Hopefully this latest judgement will be the ‘wake up’ call which may bring to an end the unscrupulous conduct on the part of many so called colleagues!!
The judge in Kelly 1 made these comments about SYP – “So, whether you look at it from the common law or from the disability regime or from the European Convention, it seems to me, and I so find, that when the appellant was allowed to remain in ignorance of his rights, to the profit of South Yorkshire Police let us not forget, the Chief Constable was in breach of duty.”
But, as you say, thanks goodness foe IODPA!
Well said David, spot on…
As someone who 2 years ago retired on ill health due to sustaining a serious injury on duty, it saddens me to see that this force in particular were more interested in saving money than showing compassion and doing the right thing for the officer.
Its hard enough coming to terms with the injury, which for many is/was a very traumatic incident, compounded by having to deal with the physical and mental recovery and the stressful SMP process.
SMT and HR repeatedly seem to forget this when it comes down to force finances and bean counting.
Compassion goes out of the window and we are viewed as a statistic and additional cost to the force..
I’m so glad to see that common sense and justice for the officer has prevailed.
Shame on this force for attempting to deny what the officer was entitled to.
What a bunch of hypocrites at SYP! I’ve no doubt pleading poverty with their budget, yet happy to waste thousands of pounds pursuing their challenge!
Well done Lloyd and team, enjoy every penny of what was always yours.
I hope this decision serves as both a precedent and deterrent to this and other forces when considering cases of IODP.
Officers who have through no fault of their own suffered injury be it physical or psychological and have served their community deserve better and this is a huge step towards righting the wrongs visited upon them by an uncaring employer,.
Congratulations and thank you for standing your ground
Out of of all the ‘new’ ways of working and buzz phrases I encountered during my service before injury…the only one that has stuck with me was ‘Do the right thing’.
I loved my time as a cop, almost 3 decades of my life, and it saddens me that some senior officers seem to have lost sight of this most basic of principles.
I wonder if the Queen is aware of the criminal acts that are done in her name?
Shame on South Yorkshire for wasting resources and public money defending the indefensible, and then having lost the case go and do so a second time. It wouldn’t susprise me if the money they wasted on this execise was greater than the back money they owed in the first place.
Aside from the frivolous waste of money, its utterly detestable to try and cheat an IoD out of that which a Crown Court has already said he is entitled. We become IoD’s through doing our duty, protecting the public, doing our jobs, and should be treated with more respect and consideration. Imagine the outcry if the MoD went after injured soldiers like this!
I would like to think their PCC would call the Chief Constable to account for this travesty, but I’m not holding my breath. The names of the senior officer and HR employee that decided that this was a good idea, and the solicitor that advised them it was such should be made public. Name and shame these heartless, morally bankrupt individuals.
Great result however there was no need to appeal the decision made in the first instance. Why do Pice forces waste their budgets or even the Home office waste the public funds in persecution of injured police officers.
Great news……No doubt all forces will still put obstacles in the way of Retired Officers who have been damaged in service… Wouldn’t it be a ray of sunshine if forces make the process simple for Officers who now qualify in similar circumstances to Lloyd…There will be form, after email after fax after appointment with someone on leave who can’t be contacted…We all know the drill…..Forces hope you will die so they can avoid paying out!!
Fabulous news! We knew he had won it but the SYP decided to appeal his win! Great news that it didn’t work. Hopefully other SYP pensioners will discover how they were not informed about IOD pensions either, and will get claims in!
This is a great judgement and a massive victory for the small person. Well done for persevering and show inf the force that you won’t be bullied.
Fantastic….congratulations!!
Hopefully this means that all the officers who have been receiving lower band rewards than they are entitled too should be entitled to back pay too .. a bit of good news for a change 🙏
Normal interest for matters of legal judgment is simple interest of 8%, not 3%. He is still being short change by his force.
Great news. Through no fault of his own he was injured
Fabulous news! This will make forces think again before reducing IOD pensions! I hope they squirm when they give him his back pay and interest!
Thanks to the rightful determination of Lloyd Kelly, the first class legal counsel and support of the IODPA justice has been achieved which will favour us all and and all serving Police Officers who may find themselves in our positions.
Well, since it was obvious what the outcome would be, why did they put him through all that stress? Contemptible.
Congratulations to Mr Kelly. What a fight just to get what is yours.
Brilliant result, still saddens me that Police Forces are happy to pursue what is an entitlement so aggressively, I can’t start to imagine what impact this has had on Lloyd and his family. I can only wish them all the best and hope that they are now able to look forward and move on and enjoy the future.
Brilliant!
Fantastic result, well done to Mr Kelly and the legal team, it’s cases like this that set good examples for all forces to follow.