Cases - Patel v Mehtab
Record details
- Name
- Patel v Mehtab
- Date
- [1980]
- Citation
- 5 HLR 78, QBD
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Expert witness - Public Health Act 1936
- Summary
-
Magistrates concluded that there was no statutory nuisance in premises 'in such a state as to be prejudicial to health' under the then Public Health Act 1936, even though an environmental health officer and a public health consultant had given evidence that the premises were injurious to health.
The court allowed the appeal against this finding:
'In deciding some questions of fact, magistrates are entitled to draw on their own personal experience, either of the locality or of life in general. But when it comes to deciding whether the condition of premises is or is not liable or likely to be injurious to health, one is moving outside the field where a tribunal is entitled to draw on its own experience. That is a matter upon which the tribunal needs informed expert evidence. This tribunal had informed expert evidence and, bearing in mind that they were not entitled to substitute their own opinion, the evidence was all one way ... it is a case in which the magistrates have misdirected themselves.'