Does using unlawful force automatically stop a police officer acting in the execution of his duty?
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Does using unlawful force automatically stop a police officer acting in the execution of his duty?
No, said the Divisional Court in Metcalfe v Crown Prosecution Service (CLW/15/23/3).
In the early evening of May 17, 2014, police officers were sent on two occasions to an address in Bradford following telephone calls from the public about a domestic disturbance between two men. On the second visit, the police officers who attended arrested both of them. The scene was volatile and it was clear to the officers that the two individuals concerned could not be transported to a police station in the same vehicle.
It was in those circumstances that two other officers, PCs Upshon and Mahmood, attended in a police car to assist. They placed one of the arrested individuals into their car. The appellant, Timothy Metcalfe, who was not one of the arrested men, objected, and got in the way of the officers. He was told repeatedly to stop interfering and to move away, but persisted in challenging the police officers, including saying things like make me go.
He tried to open the rear door of the police car in which the arrested man had been placed, and then attempted to stick his head into that vehicle. At one point, PC Mahmood attempted to stop Metcalfe speaking to the arrested man in the back of the police car by barring his way. Later in the course of the event, PC Upshon pushed him out of the way.
Metcalfe was charged with obstructing PC Upshon in the execution of his duty. At trial, a submission of no case to answer was made at the close of the prosecution case. The submission was that when PC Upshon pushed Metcalfe he assaulted him, because at that time the officer had not formed any intention to arrest Metcalfe, it being submitted that the officers alleged unlawful conduct meant that he was not acting in the execution of his duty with the consequence that Metcalfes conduct could not amount to obstruction of the officer in the execution of his duty. It was implicit in that submission not only that any interfering conduct of the appellant following the alleged assault could not amount to wilful obstruction of PC Upshon in the execution of his duty, but also that an assault in these circumstances would somehow free Metcalfe from criminal responsibility for what had already occurred. That submission was rejected and Metcalfe was convicted. He appealed.
The court held that the task upon which PC Upshon had been engaged, both before and after the push, had been in making good the arrest of one of the arrestees (and, in a more general sense, seeking to keep the peace), and both aspects were encompassed by his duty as a police officer.
It said that it did not matter whether the push was lawful or unlawful in determining whether Metcalfe was wilfully obstructing the officer in the execution of his duty. An unlawful push could not retrospectively render conduct lawful that was otherwise criminal. If the push was unlawful (and, in fact, here it was lawful under section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967, which authorised the use of reasonable force by the officer), it did not follow that the officer was any the less acting in the course of the execution of his duty thereafter in dealing with the arrested man. Even on that hypothesis, a person assaulted by a police officer is not liberated from the application of the criminal law prohibiting wilful obstruction of a police officer (including that police officer) in the execution of his duty.
The court also considered its earlier decision in Wood v Director of Public Prosecutions (CLW/08/20/4), and held that that decision did not support the proposition (relied on by the defendant in this case) that the only circumstance in which a police officer can lay hands on a citizen is in the course of an arrest. Accordingly, Metcalfes appeal was refused and his conviction was upheld.
Can computers be seized under search warrants?
Yes, said the Divisional Court in R (Cabot Global Ltd and others) v Barkingside Magistrates Court and another (CLW/15/21/1