The defendants appealed against convictions for using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour . . within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress. He had attended a parade celebrating the return of an army regiment from Afghanistan, but had demonstrated against the war. The defendant claimed that their conviction infringed their freedom of speech.
Held: The appeals failed. There had been no representations by the Police other than that they would endeavour to facilitate a proper protest. The prosecution was not an abuse of process. Such decisions must always be fact specific. The District judge had carefully balanced the defendants’ rights of freedom of expression against the need for order, and taking the context into account, her decision was well within the range of proper findings. The prosecution was a proportionate response.
Gross LJ, David J
[2011] EWHC 247 (Admin)
Bailii
Public Order Act 1986 5, European Convention on Human Rioghts 10
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Dehal v Crown Prosecution Service Admn 27-Sep-2005
The appellant had been convicted under section 4 of the 1986 Act. He had been accused of attending at Luton Guruwarda and intending to cause distress. He said that he had gone only peacefully to express his true religious beliefs. He had left a . .
Cited – Nembhard v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 21-Jan-2009
The defendant appealed against his conviction for failing to produce his driving documents, saying that the local police had stopped some 55 times in the previous 12 months, and that the request was improper and an abuse.
Held: ‘An officer can . .
Cited – Radmacher (Formerly Granatino) v Granatino SC 20-Oct-2010
The parties, from Germany and France married and lived at first in England. They had signed a pre-nuptial agreement in Germany which would have been valid in either country of origin. H now appealed against a judgment which bound him to it, . .
Cited – Regina v Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court, ex Parte Bennett (No 1) HL 24-Jun-1993
The defendant had been brought to the UK in a manner which was in breach of extradition law. He had, in effect, been kidnapped by the authorities.
Held: The High Court may look at how an accused person was brought within the jurisdiction when . .
Cited – Regina v Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court ex parte Fiona Watts Admn 8-Feb-1999
The defendant sought to have dismissed as an abuse of proces charges against her that as an officer of Customs and Excise prosecuting the now private prosecutor, she had committed various offences.
Held: The magistrate was vested with . .
Cited – Regina v Abu Hamza CACD 28-Nov-2006
The defendant had faced trial on terrorist charges. He claimed that delay and the very substantial adverse publicity had made his fair trial impossible, and that it was not an offence for a foreign national to solicit murders to be carried out . .
Cited – Hammond v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 13-Jan-2004
The defendant, who had since died, had been convicted of a public order offence in that standing in a street he had displayed a range of placards opposing homosexuality. He appealed saying that the finding was an unwarranted infringement of his . .
Cited – Brutus v Cozens HL 19-Jul-1972
The House was asked whether the conduct of the defendant at a tennis match at Wimbledon amounted to using ‘insulting words or behaviour’ whereby a breach of the peace was likely to be occasioned contrary to section 5. He went onto court 2, blew a . .
Cited – Hammond v Commissioner of Police for Metropolis and others CA 11-Jun-2004
The claimant mechanic was employed by the Commissioner of Police. He was working on the wheel of a police dog van when the shearing of a wheel bolt caused him to suffer injury. The question was whether the van was ‘work equipment’ within the meaning . .
Cited – Percy v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 21-Dec-2001
The defendant had been convicted of using words or behaviour likely to cause harassment alarm or distress, when she defaced the US flag, and stood on it before a US military officer. She said that the defacing of flags was a common form of protest, . .
Cited – Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 23-Jul-1999
The police had arrested three peaceful but vociferous preachers when some members of a crowd gathered round them threatened hostility.
Held: Freedom of speech means nothing unless it includes the freedom to be irritating, contentious, . .
Cited – Norwood v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 3-Jul-2003
The appellant a BNP member had displayed a large poster in his bedroom window saying ‘Islam out of Britain’. He was convicted of an aggravated attempt to cause alarm or distress. The offence was established on proof of several matters, unless the . .
Cited – Norwood v United Kingdom ECHR 16-Nov-2004
(inadmissible) . .
Cited by:
Cited – James v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 13-Nov-2015
The appellant challenged her conviction for failing to comply with conditions imposed on a public demonstration. Her demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice had brought traffic to a standstill. At trial she had been refused permission to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime, Human Rights
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.429676