Dwelling did not include the garden
The DPP appealed by case stated from a decision dismissing a prosecution for racially aggravated use of threatening words or behaviour. Both parties, neighbours, had been in their back gardens when the defendant was said to have shouted racial abuse. The magistrates had accepted a subission that the parties had been inside a dwelling.
Held: The appeal succeeded: ‘the concept of a ‘dwelling’ as defined in section 8 of the 1986 Act, for the purposes of the exception in section 5(2) of that Act, will not include a domestic garden to the front or rear of a dwelling-house. Whether or not this is so will always depend on the particular facts and circumstances of the case in hand. In some cases it will not be so; in others it will. In this case, however, on the simple and uncontroversial facts presented to us, I am of the view that the back garden at 72 – and, likewise, the back garden at 74 – did not come within the section 8 definition of a ‘dwelling’, and that the magistrates were wrong to conclude that it did.’
Lindblom LJ, McGowan DBE J
[2017] EWHC 2244 (Admin)
Bailii
Public Order Act 1986 8
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Francis; CPS Leicester, Regina v CACD 21-Dec-2006
Whilst in custody in the police station, the defendant was visited by the police surgeon. He was accused of causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress after abusing the doctor. The Crown appealed acceptance of his defence that the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.594655
