The court referred to a large list of cases which the courts had previously used to determine if a private duty is owed to a member of the public, where crimes are involves. This case is analogous to ‘Hill V Chief Constable of West Yorkshire 2015’; both involve victims who suffered injuries through a 3rd party, and on both occasions, indirect omissions or acts from the police officers themselves.

The ‘Robinson V Chief Constable of West Yorkshire 2018’ case had developed the duty of care in the law of negligence, and this has come to the decision through the previously stated cases.

The ‘Robinson V Chief Constable of West Yorkshire 2018’ case, involves Mrs Robinson, an elderly woman, who was knocked to the ground during an attempted arrest of a drug dealer. She suffered injuries due to the suspect refusing arrest. She decided to sue the officers involved however, this was held that the police did not owe a duty of care. The reasoning for this was that they do not owe a duty of care to the public at large, only to those sufficiently proximate.

The main case impacting the decision of the first hearing was ‘Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire’. The rationale behind their judgement is based on their belief that this case ‘showed’ that the police were immune to liability claims. This decision was corroborated within the subsequent hearing. whereby the analogous ‘Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales’ case confers that the police do not owe a duty of care to the claimant.

Despite these findings, a final appeal to the supreme court reversed the decision regarding the police ‘immunity’; positing that they do indeed owe a duty of care. The rationale behind the revised decision is based upon the findings that ‘Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire’ was misunderstood during the first hearing. The defenced used this case to argue that police were immune to negligence liability. However, the case never stated this as fact, it i