THREE members of a Wiltshire family who claimed police raids on their property in search of hard drugs and violated their human rights have had their complaints rejected by High Court judges.

Brian and Evelyn Austen, and their son, Michael Austen junior, say they were caused "considerable anxiety and disruption" by the February 2010 raids on properties on the Chelworth Park Industrial Estate and Michael’s home, both in Cricklade.

They accused Wiltshire Police of putting "inaccurate, misleading and incomplete" information before the magistrate who issued the search warrants and argued the whole operation – which involved a large number of officers – could have been triggered by a “malicious complaint”.

They took their case to London's High Court in a bid to persuade judges Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Justice McCombe that the police had acted unlawfully.

But dismissing the family’s case, Mr Justice Ouseley said: “The fact that the searches found no evidence of the sort which the police suspected that they would does not show that reasonable grounds for suspicion did not exist.”

Although the hearing before the magistrate only lasted 15 minutes – and she was not told of the family's clean records as she should have been – the judge said the police had put enough information before her to raise “reasonable grounds for suspicion”.

Also rejecting the family’s claim that the magistrates’ court hearing was infected by bias, the judge said: “There is no basis for supposing that, at this magistrates’ court, an over-cosy relationship had grown up between (police) officers and the justices’ clerks.

“I am not persuaded that an objective observer in full possession of the facts would have concluded that there was a real possibility of bias,” he added.

The police, the judge said, had acted on “quite recent intelligence reports” and the officer in charge “had reasonable grounds for suspecting that controlled drugs or relevant documents were on the premises to be searched”.

The Austens, represented by QC, Hugh Tomlinson, had argued that the information put before the magistrate was “wholly insufficient” to support the issue of the warrants and accused the police of making “inadequate disclosure” to the magistates’ court.

Mr Justice Ouseley concluded: “Although the claim was arguable on the merits, I would dismiss it.”

Mrs Austen had described the raids as “distressing and shocking” and said her youngest son suffered at school due to the “unpleasant notoriety created by the publicity given to the search”.

She said the incident had a long term effect on her psychological well-being.

The judge said nothing incriminating was found during the raids, apart from 0.3g of cocaine in a jacket belonging to Michael Austen junior, who later pleaded guilty to possessing the drug.