Police officers had attended an address following reports of a domestic disturbance between the appellant and another. Both men were arrested. The appellant objected as the other individual was escorted away by the two officers and placed in the back of a police car. He tried to block the officers’ way and was repeatedly told to stop interfering and to move away. He tried to open the rear door of the police car and to stick his head into the vehicle. At one point, one of the officers attempted to stop the appellant speaking to the other man by barring his way and then by pushing him out of the way. At trial, the appellant made a submission of no case to answer on the basis that the officer had assaulted him when he pushed him. He argued that the officer’s alleged unlawful conduct meant that he was not acting in the execution of his duty, with the consequence that the appellant’s own conduct could not amount to obstruction.
Held: The appeal failed. The push had not been unlawful
Burnett LJ said: ‘The task upon which PC Upshon was engaged, both before and after the push, was in securing one of the arrested men by placing and keeping him in the police car with a view to transporting him to a police station. The officer and his colleague were also engaged in a more general sense in seeking to keep the peace. These aspects encompass the ‘duty’ PC Upshon was in the process of executing.
In my judgment it matters not whether the push was lawful or unlawful in determining the answer to the question whether the appellant was wilfully obstructing PC Upshon in the execution of his duty. The push clearly had no bearing on the question whether the appellant’s conduct before that time amounted to wilful obstruction. On the findings of the magistrates it did. I am unable to see how an unlawful push could retrospectively render conduct lawful, which was otherwise criminal. But equally, if the push were unlawful it does not follow that PC Upshon was any the less acting in the course of the execution of his duty thereafter in dealing with the arrested man in the car. Even on that hypothesis, a person who has been assaulted by a police officer is not liberated from the application of the criminal law prohibiting wilful obstruction of a constable (including that constable) in the execution of his duty. The assault itself could not be characterised as being part of the execution of the officer’s duty. That is why Fraser Wood was entitled to resist when he was restrained. But he would not, for example, have been entitled to block the officers with a view to preventing them making a lawful arrest, dealing with an incident of disorder or executing a search warrant. That would have amounted to wilful obstruction of the officers in the execution of their duty. So too here, even if the appellant was the victim of an assault it provides him with no defence to a charge of obstructing the officer in the execution of his duty regarding the arrested man in the car.’
Judges:
Burnett LJ and Stewart J
Citations:
[2015] EWHC 1091 (Admin)
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – McCann v Crown Prosecution Service Admn 21-Aug-2015
Appeal by case stated against conviction for obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty. The appellant had been protesting. She, correctly, thought the land to be a rivate highway. The police officer had thought it a public hghway and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime, Police
Updated: 26 August 2022; Ref: scu.545872