Negligence

Police - prisoner committing suicide in police cell - no duty to take reasonable steps to prevent prisoner's suicide where no reason to consider him suicide riskOrange v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police: CA (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers MR, Lords Justice Peter Gibson and Latham): 1 May 2001The deceased was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and placed in a police cell where he was monitored.

He was married with young children; the police had no reason to consider him a suicide risk.When a police officer went to release him from custody he found the deceased hanging by his belt from the horizontal bar of a gate inside the cell door.

He could not be resuscitated.

The claimant, his widow, brought an action on behalf of his estate and dependants alleging negligence by the police in failing to remove the deceased's belt or monitor him properly and placing him in a cell with a suspension point.The judge dismissed the action on the ground that the police owed him no duty of care to prevent him from taking his life as there was no evidence that he was a suicide risk.

The claimant appealed.Tim Owen QC (instructed by Ison Harrison & Co, Leeds) for the claimant.

Christopher G Johnston (instructed by the solicitor, West Yorkshire Police, Wakefield) for the chief constable.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that the police and prison authorities did not owe a duty to protect all prisoners from committing suicide; that as part of their general duty of care for a prisoner's health and safety, custodians had a duty to assess whether a prisoner was a suicide risk, but the duty to take reasonable care to protect a prisoner from committing suicide only arose where the custodians knew or ought to have known that the individual prisoner presented a suicide risk.

(WLR)