Animal rights extremism : government strategy: a consultation document / [Home Office].

  • Great Britain. Home Office.
Date:
2001
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Animal rights extremism : government strategy: a consultation document / [Home Office]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Common Law: Breach of the Peace Breach of the peace is a common-law concept dating back to the tenth century. In October 1981, in a Court of Appeal giving judgment in R. v. Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, ex parte Central Electricity Generating Board ([1982] Queen's Bench Reports 458), which concerned a protest against the construction of a nuclear power station, Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, defined breach of the peace as follows: There is a breach of the peace whenever a person who is lawfully carrying out his work is unlawfully and physically prevented by another from doing it. He is entitled by law peacefully to go on with his work on his lawful occasions. If anyone unlawfully and physically obstructs the worker — by lying down or chaining himself to a rig or the like — he is guilty of a breach of the peace. (p. 471) In a subsequent case before the Divisional Court (Percy v. Director of Public Prosecutions [1995] 1 Weekly Law Reports 1382), Mr Justice Collins followed Howell, rather than ex parte Central Electricity Generating Board, in holding that there must be a risk of violence before there could be a breach of the peace. However, it was not essential that the violence be perpetrated by the defendant, as long as it was established that the natural consequence of his behaviour would be to provoke violence in others: The conduct in question does not itself have to be disorderly or a breach of the criminal law. It is sufficient if its natural consequence would, if persisted in, be to provoke others to violence, and so some actual danger to the peace is established. (p. 1392) This could apply where actions prevent others from working, or in any circumstances where violence or the threat of violence is present. It is unlikely to apply to a peaceful demonstration unless it was likely to provoke some form of confrontation. Incitement To solicit or incite another to commit a crime is indictable at common law, even if the solicitation or incitement has no effect. A crime would not actually need to be committed to convict ringleaders who were inciting offences by others. But a conviction would have to be for incitement to commit another offence. If the behaviour did not meet the threshold of an offence, then neither would incitement do sO. Civil Injunctions Companies, or individual staff could seek civil injunctions against an organisation or individual campaigners preventing from congregating in certain areas, or approaching staff. This is a familiar remedy which a company can obtain either for itself or for