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Police have escaped a multi-million pound bill after a Law Lords’ ruling that they are not liable to pay damages for failing to act over threats which led to the murder of a witness.

The Law Lords upheld two appeals brought by the Chief Constables of both Hertfordshire and Sussex police forces to establish the extent of their obligations to protect the life of individuals in the face of known threats.

In the first, Giles van Colle, 25, an optometrist, had reported to Hertfordshire Police several threats made against him by a technician he employed, Daniel Brougham.

Brougham was due to stand trial on theft charges and Mr van Colle was due to give evidence against him.

However, police took no action: they did not rearrest Brougham, charge him with interfering with a witness, or cancel his bail.

In November 2000, Mr van Colle was shot dead three times at close range after leaving his shop in Mill Hill, North London. Brougham was sentenced to life for murder.

The officer in the case, Detective Constable David Ridley, of Hertfordshire Police, was later found guilty in a police disciplinary action of failing to perform his duties diligently over the threats.

Mr van Colle’s parents launched a case against the police under article two of the Human Rights Act, which protects the right to life. They won in both the High Court and Court of Appeal and were awarded £25,000 in compensation.

But today, the Law Lords ruled that police were only liable where they are aware of a real and immediate risk to life and failed to take steps that could have avoided that risk.

Lord Hope of Craighead, who with four other law lords dismissed the appeal, said: “The murder was the action of a seriously disturbed and unpredictable individual.

“In my opinion it cannot reasonably be said that DC Ridley should have anticipated, from the information available at the time, that Brougham constituted a risk to Giles’s life that was both real and imminent.”

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