s.5(1)

A magistrates’ court had erred in ordering a chief constable to pay a respondent’s costs after he had withdrawn his application for a sexual offences prevention order. The chief constable had not acted dishonestly or unreasonably in bringing the application and so the appropriate order was no order as to costs. In contradistinction to a normal civil case, in which there was a strong presumption that the discontinuing party would pay the other party’s costs, when a regulatory function was being exercised, a costs order would generally only be made on a withdrawal if the regulator’s conduct justified it, for example, if no order for costs would result in substantial hardship for the other party, or if the regulatory function was exercised in bad faith or unreasonably.