In Waters v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, The Times, 1 August 2000, the claimant suffered psychiatric injury having been raped by a fellow police officer and ostracised and bullied by her colleagues. She claimed that the police authorities had failed to deal with her complaint properly and had allowed other officers to victimise her.

The House of Lords held that in deciding if immunity existed, consideration had to be given to the primary role of the police (namely, to deter crime) and to the wider public interest issue of ensuring the police service is run both efficiently and as a responsible employer. In this case, the scales fell in favour of the claimant (note that, technically, this was an employers’ liability claim).