Judgment handed down by the Court of Appeal in Pryor v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2026] EWCA Civ 650

Judgment was handed down by the Court of Appeal last week in Pryor v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2026] EWCA Civ 650.

The Commissioner appealed against an order made ten days in advance of the trial listing refusing him permission to rely on witness statements that had been served after the deadline stipulated in the Court’s directions (but still 4 months in advance of trial). Crucially, however, an application to extend time for service of the statements had been made prior to expiry of the deadline. Notwithstanding that fact, the Deputy High Court Judge had treated the application as one for relief from sanction, apparently on the basis of an erroneous understanding that the application was “issued” after the deadline. The effect of the Judge’s refusal of relief was to deprive the Commissioner of the ability to defend the claim in its entirety.

The Court of Appeal held that the Judge had erred in treating the Commissioner’s prospective application for an extension of time as one for relief from sanction to which the three-stage test in Denton applied. The Court quashed the decision and re-took it in accordance with the overriding objective, declining to apply the relief from sanctions regime by analogy, as was done in Jalla v Shell International [2021] EWCA Civ1559, the Commissioner’s conduct not being so egregious as to justify importing the greater rigour of the Denton test. The Court found that the justice of the case came down firmly in favour of extending time.   

The Court of Appeal’s judgment reiterates a number of principles now well-established in case law, in particular that applications for extensions of time made prospectively pursuant to CPR 3.1 are to be determined in accordance with the overriding objective and not the narrower test in CPR 3.9 (see Hallam Estates v Baker [2014] EWCA Civ 661). The Respondent’s argument that Hallam Estates was no longer good law in the light of two more recent decisions of the Court of Appeal was roundly rejected as, in effect, misconceived. Further, the Court reiterated that the relevant date is the date on which an application is received by the Court office (as per CPR 23.5), not the date on which an application is issued.

Charlotte Ventham KC acted for the Commissioner.