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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Police - From: 1900 To: 1929

This page lists 11 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.

 
Mason v Orr [1901] ScotCS CSIH_1; (1901) 4 F 220; (1901) 9 SLT 269
28 Nov 1901
SCS
Lord M'Laren
Scotland, Torts - Other, Police
Action directed against the Superintendent of the Central Division of the Glasgow Police for an alleged assault, and the question is whether a relevant case has been stated.
[ Bailii ]

 
 Regina v Booth and Jones; 1910 - (1910) 5 Criminal Appeal Reports 179
 
Glamorgan Coal Co v Glamorgan Joint Standing Committee [1915] 1 KB 483
1915

Bankes LJ
Police
Bankes LJ said that the duties of police forces include the preservation of the peace, the protection of the inhabitants, and the safeguarding of property within their area.
1 Citers


 
Glamorgan Coal Company Ltd v Glamorganshire Standing Joint Committee [1916] 2 KB 206
1916
CA
Pickford LJ, Viscount Finlay, Lord Carson
Negligence, Police
The court considered the duties on police constables to protect property. Held. Pickford LJ said: "[The defendants] are the police authority and have to make proper police arrangements to maintain the peace. If one party to a dispute is threatened with violence by the other party he is entitled to protection from such violence whether his contention in the dispute be right or wrong."
. . and "If one party to a dispute is threatened with violence by the other party he is entitled to protection from such violence whether his contention in the dispute be right or wrong, and to allow the police authority to deny him protection from that violence unless he pays all the expense in addition to the contribution which with other ratepayers he makes to the support of the police is only one degree less dangerous than to allow that authority to decide which party is right in the dispute and grant or withhold protection accordingly. There is a moral duty on each party to the dispute to do nothing to aggravate it and to take reasonable means of self-protection, but the discharge of this duty by them is not a condition precedent to the discharge by the police authority of their own duty."
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Kaufmann Brothers v Liverpool Corporation; KBD 1916 - [1916] 1 KB 860
 
Great Central Railway Co v Bates [1921] 3 KB 578
1921
CA
Atkin LJ
Torts - Other, Police
A police officer has no right to enter land merely because most reasonable householders "would not as a rule object if the matter was done bona fide and no nuisance was caused"
1 Citers


 
Ford v Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District [1921] 2 KB
1921

Bailhache J
Police
Bailhache J considered a claim under the 1886 Act: "There must be judgment for the plaintiff, and the question of the quantum of damages must be referred."
Riot (Damages) Act 1886
1 Citers



 
 Johnstone v Pedlar; HL 24-Jun-1921 - [1921] 2 AC 262; [1921] UKHL 1
 
Pitchers v Surrey County Council [1923] 2 KB 57
1923

Swift J
Police, Damages
In 1919 there was a riot involving Canadian soldiers from a local Camp. They released fellow soldiers in custody and raided the officers' mess, and damaged and stole the contents of a tailor's shop and other shops known as "Tin Town" – a group of shops erected with the permission of the military authorities on a part of the Portsmouth Road which ran through the camp. The plaintiff was the owner of the tailor's shop and sued the defendant police authority under the 1886 Act. Held: Swift J said: "The defendants contend that although it is true that a house, shop or building has been destroyed it is not a house, shop or building in any police district, as the police had no jurisdiction over Witley Camp, the action of the military having taken Witley Camp completely out of the police district." and "But the Act of Parliament does not give a citizen a right to compensation for damage by riot on any principle of blaming the police over the matter. The fact that the damage has been done in spite of the care and protection of the police or because of the negligence of the police does not affect the right of the claimant to have compensation. It is a right which is given to the individual who is hurt by a riot to have his damages shared by the whole of the community, and the community for the purpose of this sharing is the police district within which the building injured or destroyed is situated."
Swift J went on to say that the fact that the camp was a private place did not prevent it from being a place in which a riot could take place"But it is said that the police had no control over the soldiers and that they were helpless to do anything. I do not think that that contention is right. I think that the police had the right of control directly a felony was committed in their presence. Of course they had not the power of exercising control. I have stated what opinion I have formed of the three police officers who gave evidence before me. I have not the slightest doubt that they had sufficient courage to try to stop the disturbance; they would, however, have been foolish men had they attempted to do so, as it could not possibly have done any good and they might have been very seriously hurt if not actually killed in endeavouring to quell the disturbance, but the fact that it may not be physically possible for the police to quell a disturbance does not affect the question of their legal rights. I am far from being satisfied that if the police in the neighbourhood of a military camp see the soldiers breaking it up they have not a legal right to apprehend them for the breach of the peace or for the felony which they are committing." and
"The right to compensation does not seem to me to be in the least degree dependent upon any action or inaction on the part of the police. It is quite clear that it would have been physically impossible for all the police in Surrey, who I think numbered 280 at this time, to have taken control of that camp without the assistance and support of the military authorities. It would have been a physical impossibility for them to have reduced some hundreds of rioters, many of whom I suppose were armed or had access to arms, to such a state that they could say that the riot was quelled. But no one here suggests any neglect or impropriety on the part of the police. Every one who has heard this case I should think has come to the conclusion that they acted with great discretion and great propriety in the matter. But the Act of Parliament does not give a citizen a right to compensation for damage by riot on any principle of blaming the police over the matter. The fact that the damage has been done in spite of the care and protection of the police or because of the negligence of the police does not affect the right of the claimant to have compensation. It is a right which is given to the individual who is hurt by a riot to have his damages shared by the whole of the community, and the community for the purpose of this sharing is the police district within which the building injured or destroyed is situated. The plaintiff is entitled to have the wrong which was done to her shared by all the contributors to the police fund in the police district of Surrey."
Riot (Damages) Act 1886
1 Citers


 
Pitchers v Surrey County Council [1923] 2 KB 70
2 Jan 1923
CA
Lord Sterndale MR, Warrington and Atkin LJJ
Police, Damages
The claimant sought payment for damages to his property after imprisoned Canadian troops were released and came into the town causing damage. Held. Lord Sterndale said: "it is said that this camp under the circumstances ceased to be within the police district. The circumstances are that this camp was inhabited by soldiers who were under military discipline and control by military police. It was more convenient and very much wiser that soldiers . . should be controlled by their own police than by the civilian police in the district…But that is a long way from saying that the camp and the soldiers are to be taken out of the jurisdiction, if I may call it so, of the civilian police, and that the civilian police are in law to be deprived of the rights they would otherwise have within that part of the police district. There is no foundation, in my opinion, for saying anything of that sort. For convenience the officers wisely employed pickets and military police to look after the soldiers, and for convenience the police do not interfere, as a rule, but they still maintain their rights in that part of the police district just the same as they do in other parts of it. There may be difficulties in their way in exercising those rights because of the necessarily superior forces possessed by the military powers in time of war; but that does not affect the legal position in the least. Therefore it seems to me quite clear that this camp was within the police district, and the first requisite to bring the matter within the act is satisfied."
Warrington LJ said: "Then it is said that the act must be so construed, whether by rule of commonsense or otherwise, as to exclude for the purposes of the Act from the expression "Police District" any district in which a body, not the ordinary civilian police, is by law charged with the maintenance of law and order, and is itself empowered to maintain a police force; and it is said that this area is such a district because the military authorities were charged with the maintenance of law and order, I suppose so far as those who were under their jurisdiction were concerned, and were empowered to maintain a police force. In my opinion that proposition is quite unsustainable; there is no authority for it; nor can I in reason see any ground for contending that, because the particular individuals who formed the military body were subject to military discipline, the area in which they lived should be withdrawn from the ordinary police protection of the rest of the county…But it is said that because they were soldiers and because their offence had the added gravity of being a mutiny, therefore they were not in civil law riotously and tumultuously assembled together. Really I fail to follow that. The Act of Parliament makes no exception at all – it provides simply that if injury is done by any persons riotously and tumultuously assembled together, then compensation is to be paid by the police authority in whose district that riot takes place."
Atkin LJ said: "The area is part of the county of Surrey, but it is said that by virtue of the powers which the military authorities possess, having taken possession of it as I have mentioned, that area ceased to be part of the police district as defined under the Act and was taken out of it . . No authority has been suggested for that proposition, and it cannot be contended that military barracks are an Alsatia. The law runs there. Everybody in the military barracks is subject to the criminal law and to the civil law, and the police authorities have the ordinary rights to enforce process there, subject to such limitations as may be imposed by the fact that the premises are premises of the Crown…The argument to the contrary consisted of a combination of two circumstances – namely that they were both soldiers and acting within the area of the camp. It can hardly be doubted but that if they were soldiers, that is to say subject to military law, and this offence were committed outside the camp, it would be within the Act. I can see no reason why it should not be. The possibility of a disturbance by three or four soldiers, which is enough to constitute a riot, must have been well within the contemplation of the Legislature at the time when they made this provision, and if in fact a riot took place within a camp or within barracks and damage is done, I see no reason why a person so damaged should not recover compensation. In an ordinary case if damage is done in barracks, the damage for the most part would be done to Crown property. I am far from saying that the Crown would not be entitled under those circumstances to recover compensation. Of course questions would arise which under the Act with regard to damage would make it difficult in some cases, at any rate, to recover compensation. For the above reasons it appears to me that the case is made out."
Riot (Damages) Act 1886
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Glasbrook Brothers Limited v Glamorgan County Council [1925] AC 270; [1924] UKHL 3
1925
HL
Viscount Cave LC, Viscount Finlay
Police, Negligence
A colliery manager asked for police protection for his colliery during a strike. He wanted police officers to be billeted on the premises. The senior police officer for the area was willing to provide protection by a mobile force, but he refused to billet police officers at the colliery unless the manager agreed to pay for the additional service at a specified rate. The manager promised to do so, but when the police submitted their bill the company refused to pay it on the ground that it was the duty of the police to prove necessary police protection without payment. Held: Any attempt by a police authority to extract payment for services which fell within the plain obligations of the police force should be firmly discountenanced by the courts. The police were however entitled to charge for special billeting of policemen at a colliery during a strike. It was lawful for the police to seek to charge for services which their public obligations would not otherwise oblige them to provide.
The police are under an absolute and unconditional obligation to take all steps which appear to them to be necessary for keeping the peace, for preventing crime or for protecting property from criminal injury.
Viscount Cave LC said: "No doubt there is an absolute and unconditional obligation binding the police authorities to take all steps which appear to them to be necessary for keeping the peace, for preventing crime, or for protecting property from criminal injury; and the public, who pay for this protection through the rates and taxes, cannot lawfully be called upon to make a further payment for that which is their right." and
"But it has always been recognized that, where individuals desire that services of a special kind which, though not within the obligations of a police authority, can most effectively be rendered by them, should be performed by members of the police force, the police authorities may (to use an expression which is found in the Police Pensions Act, 1890) "lend" the services of constables for that purpose in consideration of payment. Instances are the lending of constables on the occasions of large gatherings in and outside private premises, as on the occasions of weddings, athletic or boxing contests or race meetings, and the provision of constables at large railway stations." and
"There may be services rendered by the police which, although not within the scope of their absolute obligations to the public, may yet fall within their powers, and in such cases public policy does not forbid their performance."
Viscount Finlay said: "If a particular person desires protection of a special sort and the police can give this without interfering with the discharge of other duties elsewhere, it is difficult to see on what ground of public policy it should be illegal that a charge should be made in respect of special protection." and "There is no doubt that it is the duty of the police to give adequate protection to all persons and their property. In discharging this duty those in control of the police must exercise their judgment as to the manner in which the protection should be afforded."
Viscount Finlay said: "There is no doubt that it is the duty of the police to give adequate protection to all persons and to their property ... Beyond all question it is the duty of the police to give protection to the persons and property of all His Majesty's subjects."
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
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