CASE OF KHAN v. THE UNITED KINGDOM
Violation of Art. 8;No violation of Art. 6-1;Violation of Art. 13;Non-pecuniary damage - finding of violation sufficient;Costs and expenses partial award - Convention proceedings
Nicolas Bratza
9. On 17 September 1992 the applicant arrived at Manchester Airport on a flight from Pakistan. On the same flight was his cousin, N. Both men were stopped and searched by customs officials. N. was found to be in possession of heroin with a street value of almost 100,000 pounds sterling. He was interviewed and then arrested and charged. No drugs were found on the applicant. He too was interviewed, but made no admissions. He was released without charge. On 26 January 1993 the applicant visited a friend, B., in Sheffield. B. was under investigation for dealing in heroin. On 12 January 1993 the installation of a listening device on B.'s premises had been authorised by the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire on the grounds that the conventional methods of surveillance were unlikely to provide proof that he was dealing in drugs. It was not expected or foreseen that the applicant would visit the premises. Neither B. nor the applicant was aware of the aural surveillance equipment which had been installed by the police. 10. By means of that device the police obtained a tape recording of a conversation, in the course of which the applicant admitted that he had been a party to the importation of drugs by N. on 17 September 1992. The applicant was arrested on 11 February 1993. Again he made no admissions when interviewed, but subsequently he and N. were jointly charged with offences under the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1991 and committed for trial. 11. The trial took place in December 1993. The applicant pleaded “not guilty”. The applicant admitted that he had been present at the Sheffield address and that his voice was one of those recorded on the tape. It was admitted on behalf of the Crown that the attachment of the listening device had involved a civil trespass and had occasioned some damage to the property. Thereupon, the trial judge conducted a hearing on the voir dire (submissions on a point of law in the absence of the jury) as to the admissibility in evidence of the conversation recorded on the tape. The Crown accepted that without it there was no case against the applicant. 12. The trial judge ruled that the evidence was admissible. Following an amendment to the indictment, the applicant was re-arraigned and pleaded guilty to being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of heroin. On 14 March 1994 the applicant was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. 13. The applicant appealed to the Court of Appeal on the ground that the evidence ought to have been held to be inadmissible. On 27 May 1994 the Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant's appeal against conviction but also certified, as a point of law of general public importance, the question whether evidence of tape-recorded conversations, obtained by a listening device attached by the police to a private house without the knowledge of the owners or occupiers, was admissible in a criminal trial against the defendant. 14. On 4 October 1994 the Appeal Committee of the House of Lords granted the applicant leave to appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal dismissing his appeal against conviction. On 2 July 1996 the House of Lords dismissed the applicant's appeal. The House of Lords noted that the question before it gave rise to two separate issues, the first being whether evidence of the taped conversations was admissible at all and the second whether, if admissible, it should nonetheless have been excluded by the trial judge in the exercise of his discretion at common law or under the powers conferred by section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (“PACE”). As to the former issue, the House of Lords held that there was no right to privacy in English law and that, even if there were such a right, the common-law rule that relevant evidence which was obtained improperly or even unlawfully remained admissible applied to evidence obtained by the use of surveillance devices which invaded a person's privacy. As to the latter issue, it was held that the fact that evidence had been obtained in circumstances which amounted to a breach of the provisions of Article 8 of the Convention was relevant to, but not determinative of, the judge's discretion to admit or exclude such evidence under section 78 of PACE. The judge's discretion had to be exercised according to whether the admission of the evidence would render the trial unfair, and the use at a criminal trial of material obtained in breach of the right to privacy enshrined in Article 8 did not mean that the trial would be unfair. On the facts, the trial judge had been entitled to hold that the circumstances in which the relevant evidence was obtained, even if they constituted a breach of Article 8, were not such as to require the exclusion of the evidence. Lord Nolan, giving the opinion of the majority of the House, added: “The sole cause of this case coming to your Lordship's House is the lack of a statutory system regulating the use of surveillance devices by the police. The absence of such a system seems astonishing, the more so in view of the statutory framework which has governed the use of such devices by the Security Service since 1989, and the interception of communications by the police as well as by other agencies since 1985. I would refrain from other comment because counsel for the respondent was able to inform us, on instructions, that the government proposes to introduce legislation covering the matter in the next session of Parliament.” 15. The applicant was discharged from prison on 11 August 1994. His release was on licence until 12 May 1995. 16. Guidelines on the use of equipment in police surveillance operations (the Home Office Guidelines of 1984) provide that only chief constables or assistant chief constables are entitled to give authority for the use of such devices. The Guidelines are available in the library of the House of Commons and are disclosed by the Home Office on application. 17. In each case, the authorising officer should satisfy himself that the following criteria are met: (a) the investigation concerns serious crime; (b) normal methods of investigation must have been tried and failed, or must from the nature of things, be unlikely to succeed if tried; (c) there must be good reason to think that the use of the equipment would be likely to lead to an arrest and a conviction, or where appropriate, to the prevention of acts of terrorism; (d) the use of equipment must be operationally feasible. The authorising officer should also satisfy himself that the degree of intrusion into the privacy of those affected by the surveillance is commensurate with the seriousness of the offence. 18. The Guidelines also state that there may be circumstances in which material so obtained could appropriately be used in evidence at subsequent court proceedings. 19. The Police Complaints Authority was created by section 89 of PACE. It is an independent body empowered to receive complaints as to the conduct of police officers. It has powers to refer charges of criminal offences to the Director of Public Prosecutions and itself to bring disciplinary charges. 20. Section 78(1) of PACE provides as follows: “In any proceedings the court may refuse to allow evidence on which the prosecution proposes to rely to be given if it appears to the court that, having regard to all the circumstances, including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit it.” 21. The 1997 Act provides a statutory basis for the authorisation of police surveillance operations involving interference with property or wireless telegraphy. The relevant sections relating to the authorisation of surveillance operations, including the procedures to be adopted in the authorisation process, entered into force on 22 February 1999.