The defendant, in a strike picket during an industrial dispute, stood holding a placard in front of a vehicle on a highway, urging the driver not to work at a site nearby and preventing him from proceeding along the highway as the driver wished. The House heard his appeal against a direction that he be convicted of obstruction of the highway, claiming the protection of section 134 of the 1971 Act.
Held: The appeal failed. Section 134 made lawful the attendance of pickets only for the purposes specified therein. It did not require the person whom it was sought to persuade, to submit to any constraint or restriction on his right to personal freedom, so that although the defendant had a statutory right to invite the driver to stop and listen to him, so long as that was done in a reasonable way, the defendant had not been entitled to compel him to do so.
Lord Reid, Lord Morris of Borth-y Gest, Lord Hodson, Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Salmon
[1973] UKHL 5, [1974] I All ER 314, [1974] 2 WLR 58, [1974] ICR 84, [1974] AC 587
Bailii
Highways Act 1959 121, Industrial Relations Act 1971 134
England and Wales
Employment, Crime
Updated: 04 December 2021; Ref: scu.248604