Haven Solicitors

Haven Solicitors has successfully won a judicial review against Merseyside Police.   Merseyside decided to give in, this is referred to as ‘conceding the case’ and a consent order has been issued.

We would like to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation for all of the hard work and dedication provided by Ron & Mark at Haven Solicitors.

Haven’s press release:

IODPA has been openly critical of Merseyside’s mass review methods since they reviewed 502 injury pensions in 9 months.

Sometimes we are eerily prescient. We said Merseyside  ripped through the review process by bullying vulnerable people to wrongly having to self-justify their own entitlement to their award under the cosh of threats that their award will removed or suspended if the invented questionnaire is not completed.  The Merseyside questionnaire follows the same format as all questionnaires used in mass review fishing expeditions.

You can read the offending questionnaire here: Merseyside Review Of Injury Award Questionnaire

No person with an injury award shall never be forced to acquiesce to such invasion of personal and sensitive data again.

Full Text:

HAVEN SOLICITORS LTD
Right against Might
Commer House
Tadcaster Enterprise Park
Station Rd, LS24 9JF
DD: 01937 837 708
Email:
Merseyside police abandon unlawful suspension of former officer’s police injury pension, reinstate the pension and pay out legal costs.

Merseyside police have abandoned an attempt to force a former police officer to disclose medical records and fill in a capacity questionnaire in advance of a police injury pension review.

The former PC had agreed to be examined by an SMP and give limited disclosure of relevant medical records to the SMP but refused to hand over all his medical records to the Force or fill in a questionnaire about his health for the Force to review in advance of an SMP referral.

He pointed out that the Force had no legal authority to demand copies of any of his medical records or force him to complete a Force questionnaire.

The Mersey Force refused to back down, claiming they had discussed this approach nationally, and had support ( we assume from the National Attendance Management Forum) to do this. The force then suspended the former officer’s entire police injury pension to try to put pressure on him to disclose medical records and fill in their questionnaire.

The former officer, with Police Federation support, also refused to back down. He instructed specialist solicitor, Ron Thompson of Haven Solicitors LTD. Mr Thompson instructed Landmark barristers David Lock QC and Richard Clarke, who promptly drafted Judicial Review proceedings to challenge this unlawful suspension.

The result was that, just before the Chief Constable was due to file his “Defence”, he backed down and lifted the suspension, The Chief Constable will also pay all the former officer’s legal costs, meaning that the episode will not result in any cost to the former officer or the Police Federation.

Ron Thompson commented on the outcome saying:

“This was an unnecessary and totally avoidable dispute. All the Chief Constable’s staff had to do was to read the wording of the Regulations to see that they had no power to force former officers to hand over medical notes or fill in questionnaires, particularly in advance of any decision to make a referral to the SMP.

The lesson from this episode for Forces is that no amount of misguided “advice” from the National Attendance Management Forum can change the meaning of the words of the Regulations.

Any other Force that tries this tactic can expect to be served with the same type of
legal challenge”
[Ends]