The defendant had an accident while driving a car and was tracked to his home by a police dog. He gave a positive specimen of breath standing partly inside and partly outside the house. When told he was being arrested he pulled back into the house and a struggle ensued in the course of which the constable and another policeman entered the house. The defendant’s mother asked the police to leave and they did so, retaining their hold on the defendant, who was later charged with failing to provide a specimen of blood or urine and with assaulting a constable in the execution of his duty. If, as the defence contended, the police were trespassers in the house, that fact would have provided a defence directly to the assault charge and indirectly to the road traffic charge.
Held: Judgment for the crown. McCullough J reviewed the authorities and said: ‘Accordingly, the arrest of the defendant by officers who remained outside his house on land where they were still authorised to be was lawful. Thereafter, they were not engaged in attempting to arrest the defendant. They were engaged in the essentially different exercise of recapturing a prisoner who had escaped from lawful custody. The question which therefore arises in this case is whether such a prisoner can make good his escape from lawful custody by reaching his dwelling house and by refusing permission to enter to the officers pursuing him. . . The rights of officers pursuing those who have escaped are not affected by sections 2 and 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967. They derive from the common law, and they include the right to break into a dwelling house if need be.’
Judges:
McCullough J, Griffiths LJ
Citations:
[1983] RTR 484
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – D’Souza v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 15-Oct-1992
The police went to detain the appellant under the 1983 Act. To do so they entered the property against her wishes. She resisted detention, and now appealed her conviction for assaulting the Police officers in the execution of their duty, saying that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Police
Updated: 29 August 2022; Ref: scu.270156