Anti-social behaviour - interim anti-social behaviour made without notice - not contravening convention right to fair trial

R (M) v Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor and others: CA (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers Master of the Rolls, Lords Justices Kennedy and Neuberger): 18 March 2004

Owing to serious problems with drug-dealing and associated crime in a city area , the council and police applied without notice for 66 interim anti-social behaviour orders against those involved, including M, aged 17.

The orders, which were made under section in 1D of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 as amended by section 65 of the Police Reform Act 2002, were for three months and required all parties to return to court in two weeks.

On M's application the order was modified but not discharged.

An extension was granted for three months, by which time the application for a full anti-social behaviour order would have been heard.

M sought judicial review on the ground, among other things, that an interim order without notice contravened the right to a fair trial in article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mr Justice Owen [2003] EWHC 2963 (Admin); [2004] 1 All ER 1333 dismissed the claim.

M appealed.

Peter Weatherby (instructed by Davies Gore Lomax, Leeds) for M; Timothy Otty (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the secretary of state; Rabinder Singh QC and Anesh Pema (instructed by Chief Legal Officer, Leeds City Council, Leeds) for Leeds City Council as an interested party.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that interim anti-social behaviour orders, made without notice when the court considered it just to do so, were for a limited period with a right to review or discharge and were not effective until served; that therefore they did not infringe the right to a fair trial in article 6 of the convention.

(WLR)