The Administrative Court’s decision in R (on the application of DMP) v The Chief Constable of Warwickshire Police [2026] EWHC 2471 (Admin) is likely to become an important authority in police information management cases. While the judgment addresses Article 8 ECHR, disability discrimination, and the treatment of children below the age of criminal responsibility, its most significant contribution may be its clear and pointed reminder that the Home Office Crime Recording Rules (“HOCA”, formerly the Home Office Counting Rules) are simply not relevant to the question of whether police should retain records of allegations on their local systems.
The claimant was an autistic child who was eight years old at the time of an alleged assault. Warwickshire Police recorded the allegation as one of an Assault occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (“ABH”) and retained the record on their local systems and the Police National Database. When deletion was requested, the force repeatedly relied upon HOCA concepts, including the proposition that there was no basis for making a “no crime” determination.
The court rejected that approach in emphatic terms. It found that that HOCA exists to ensure consistency in crime recording and national statistical reporting of crime to the Home Office. It governs whether a reported incident should be counted as a crime for statistical purposes and when such a record can be cancelled or reclassified. It does not govern the retention of information on police databases. Indeed, the Secretary of State had expressly argued earlier in the proceedings that HOCA “does not and does not purport to provide any stipulations or guidance as to the retention of information on police systems”. The court agreed.
The practical significance of this finding should not be underestimated. For years, applicants seeking deletion of police records have often encountered responses that blur the distinction between crime recording and information retention. This judgment draws a bright line between the two. A crime may remain recorded for Home Office statistical purposes while information about a suspect or alleged offender is deleted from police systems. The two issues are legally distinct.
Equally important is the court’s reminder that retention decisions in relation to locally held records must be made under the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice Guidance on Review, Retention & Disposal (“the APP”). That guidance requires an individualised assessment of necessity, proportionality, risk and the characteristics of the person concerned. In cases involving children under ten, decision-makers must specifically consider safeguarding duties under section 11 of the Children Act 2004 and the child’s circumstances “in the round”. The court found that Warwickshire Police had effectively treated the matter as a HOCA issue and failed properly to apply the APP at all.
Practitioners working in this field should be optimistic that the judgment may signal an increasing scepticism of generic policing justifications by the police for retention of criminal history data because it reinforces a fundamental principle: police records are not retained by default merely because an allegation was once recorded as a crime. Retention must be justified by a genuine policing purpose and assessed through the correct legal framework. HOCA answers the question, “Should this incident count in crime statistics?” It does not answer the entirely different question, “Should the police continue to store information about this individual?” The Administrative Court’s judgment is a timely reminder that confusing those two questions can render a retention decision unlawful.
For further information on the issues covered in this article, or to discuss your circumstances in confidence, please contact Ed Jones, Senior Associate in our Criminal Litigation team.
