Duty of police to conduct effective investigation into violent crime

The Supreme Court turned its attention to the question of whether the state is obliged, by the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) art 3, to conduct effective investigations into crimes involving serious violence to persons, whether the alleged perpetrators were state agents or individual criminals. To succeed in a claim against the state, the claimant would be required to establish that there were serious defects in the police investigation into the particular case; but there was requirement to prove that there were serious failings of a systemic nature.