Police Liabie for Damage to Furniture in Riot
The owners of furniture destroyed by rioters who entered a house and damaged it recovered compensation, even though the 1714 Act did not expressly mention furniture.
Lord Mansfield said: ‘To encourage people to resist persons thus riotously assembled, and to reward those, who, by doing their duty, shall have incurred their resentment, the same law has made a further provision, that as the trespassers are to be hanged, the country shall pay the damages; and this, by way of inducement to the inhabitants to be active in suppressing such riots, which it is their duty to do; and which being made their interest too, they are more likely to execute. This is the great principle of the law, that the inhabitants shall be in the nature of sureties for one another. It is a very ancient principle; as old as the decennaries by Alfred . .’
Lord Mansfield
(1776) 2 Cowp 486
Riot Act 1714
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Yarl’s Wood Immigration Ltd and Others v Bedfordshire Police Authority CA 23-Oct-2009
The claimant sought to recover the costs of damage to their centre following a riot, saying that under the 1886 Act, they were liable. It appealed against a ruling that they were unable to claim as a public authority, saying that the 1886 Act was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Police, Damages
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.377515