Turner J setout a series of propositions relating to the use of force in excluding people from public meetings: ‘i) Those running a public meeting, including local authorities, have a common law power (or perhaps duty in certain circumstances) to exclude attendees whose disorderly conduct or other misbehaviour disrupts or threatens to disrupt the business of the meeting.
ii) This power extends to the exclusion of all members of the general public in those cases where the attendance of the public as a whole is liable to give rise to disorderly conduct or other misbehaviour which would disrupt or threatens to disrupt the business of the meeting.
iii) The power to exclude, particularly where it is directed at all or most members of the public, will and must be exercised particularly sparingly and only in the absence of a reasonably viable alternative but, in appropriate cases, can be used either in advance of the meeting (as in Brent) or on the occasion of the meeting itself.
iv) The power may be exercised by the deployment of such force (if any) as may be necessary and proportionate to achieve and maintain the exclusion of those against whom it is directed.
v) It is not necessary that a breach of the peace should have occurred or be imminent to justify laying hands on a trespasser; although in any given case passive resistance may often become active and result in a subsequent breach of the peace.
vi) If the police are called upon to assist in the exercise of the common law power they are acting lawfully in the use of force so long as such force is necessary and not excessive.’
Turner J
[2014] EWHC 3574 (QB), [2015] PTSR 440
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
See Also – Laporte and Another v The Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis QBD 19-Feb-2015
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Cited – Skelton, Regina (on The Application of) v Winchester Crown Court Admn 5-Dec-2017
The Court was asked whether the Crown Court could properly refuse to state a case for the opinion of the divisional court, having convicted a defendant, on her appeal from the magistrates’ court, of an offence of common assault. She was evicted from . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Police, Human Rights, Personal Injury
Updated: 23 December 2021; Ref: scu.538341