When is a police officer acting in the execution of his duty?
This question was raised in Wood v DPP (CLW/08/20/4). The police were called to a public house after receiving a report that a customer by the name of Fraser had become disruptive.
This question was raised in Wood v DPP (CLW/08/20/4). The police were called to a public house after receiving a report that a customer by the name of Fraser had become disruptive.
The police were given a vague description of the man and a check on the police national computer suggested that the man might be the appellant who had a history of violence and was infected with Hepatitis B.
None of the officers knew the appellant. As they approached the public house, the appellant, who fitted the description, was emerging from the premises. One officer asked him if he was Fraser and another took hold of his arm. The appellant began struggling and tried to pull away whilst becoming increasingly violent.
Others then emerged from the public house and referred to the man as Fraser. The officer who had taken hold of the appellants arm gave uncontradicted evidence that he had done this in order to detain him and to be sure of who he was. The officer said that it was only when the other customers started to refer to the appellant as Fraser that it crystallised that that was who he was and that there were, therefore, reasonable grounds to arrest him.
The Divisional Court held that it is trite law that a police officer is not acting in the execution of his duty if he seeks to restrain someone either when he has no grounds to arrest him, or when he is not purporting to arrest him, but merely to detain or otherwise restrain him. It follows that where a police officer restrains a person, but does not at that time intend or purport to arrest him, then he is committing an assault, even if an arrest would have been justified, as in this case.
CLW Comment
Trite law indeed, but frequently honoured more in the breach than the observance, both at ground level and in the higher courts: see, for example, R v Williams (CLW/03/42/3), where the Court of Appeal came up with the novel proposition that police officers (investigating an attempted robbery) had the power to restrain a suspect in the street (in handcuffs to boot) in order to consider the extent to which he could have been the offender!
The unlawfulness of the police behaviour in that case (as it appears from the judgment) was far more blatant than in this case.