Can Brits comment on 'breaching the peace' outside of trials

Post Reply New Topic

My main question out of curiosity on this one, is this a common thing to see get invoked or is it a bit odd/oblique?

My main curiosity about this is with respect to Friday's events is whether this is something that most of the public and most journalists have in the back of their heads as laws of the land, that is something that's just general common knowledge, or whether its something that got applied more strangely than usual.

Hmm,

This actually gets into the laws surrounding the situation and it sounds like the potential contamination of jury pool, really from the side of the prosecution, might have moved this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDQF_Uo-Ns8

Breach of the Peace is very commonly invoked, either after the fact or by detaining someone to prevent a Breach of the Peace. It's rather vaguely defined along the lines of; violence or threatened violence to person or property, or being present with the intent to provoke such, without the requirement that any harm actually be caused. It is an arrestable offence, but is a civil rather than a criminal charge, though held to the same burden of proof as if it were a criminal charge. The only penalty for being found guilty of a breach is to be "bound over"; a court order stipulating that you must keep the peace for a certain period of time, and sometimes requirements to avoid certain people, places or activities. Should you break the terms of the binding over, you would then be liable for further prosecution, but otherwise it is not treated as a criminal conviction.

Attempting to intimidate the accused, victims, witnesses, their relatives, or staff outside a court is well within the scope of a Breach of the Peace, and so is an arrestable offence, without any criminal act having to be committed. It's also often invoked at political demonstrations, riots, or for the anti-social behaviour of drunken revellers - the troublemakers gets removed from the situation without the need for the full force of the criminal justice system, unless some other offence is committed or the "binding over" is broken. Who is deemed a "potential troublemaker" is at the discretion of the police officers in attendance, of course, so there is potential for indiscriminate use (e.g. autistic person having a melt-down misinterpreted as potentially violent.)

I'm relieved to at least hear this much now.

Seems like much of Europe, the US, etc. will be learning about these facets of UK civil law rather quickly over the next few weeks and it'll be important for people to understand that this isn't anything radically new. Unfortunately it plays into a particular narrative and as far as the particular party in question their safety while in jail will no need to be treated as paramount.

Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon is an absolute first grade bonehead.

He was nicked as along with trying to intimidate people on trial (innocent until proven guilty) he was also shouting stuff about the supposed crimes to a member of the jury and then filmed that jury member and put the video on social media. He is also currenrly serving a non custodial sentence for the same thing and had been told if he did it again he would go straight to prison.

It doesn't matter who you are or what your cause is, if you do that then you are guaranteed prison time.

And that is not even getting into his lengthy record of convictions for violence, fraud etc

He has repeatedly broken the law, sometimes using sickening violence, and this time i believe he committed the same crime that he was already serving a non custodial sentence for.

He is a thick football hooligan who desperately wants more than anything was to be a celebrity

The police officer was off duty I don't know the background to it but it could have been a normal fight. Even if he did do some bad things in the past he is doing good now.

If he was just after fame he would convert to Islam. He is risking his life to bring awareness to the public.

TBH, on the side of trying to get the British government to acknowledge certain problems, I like the guy. OTOH I do think it's sad if he's been so incautious at times as to damage his own cause or make it so that people can look at what happens and say 'That's unfortunate, but at the same time he kinda dug his own hole'. That last part bothers me because if and when there is a serious problem, and you're going to to out to challenge the system on it, you have to be expert at knowing where the line is and how not to cross it if you want to keep things rolling in favor or where they need to go. If you do cross that line often you end up lampooning your own cause, which has the opposite of the desired effect and if it were true that your society was on a slide toward Orwell's 1984 (which seems to be a trope going around right now) that would be a really awful time historically to botch such causes.

I'd agree with Daniel as well that at least some of the seizures have just been that - ie. selective enforcement to try and handle a political inconvenience. It's not a black-and-white story and I think what's worrying me most right now is seeing a lot of my favorite Youtube commentators not really getting it on the legal situation (although - thankfully - a few did check the facts right out of the gate).

I'm going to take a guess - far more than likely he'll be kept away from the rest of the prison population due to his high-profile status and the political risk of what could ensue if he was injured or killed. At the same time it could come to pass that while he's in jail somewhat cooler heads, maybe some of his closer followers, might be able to step in and do the work needed which would keep things moving but in perhaps a direction that's more legally air-tight.

At least that's the silver lining one might hope for.

Last time he was in prison the Muslim gangs were after him and a warden said he'd been told to move him but told Tommy to refuse to leave.

There was that guy who was sent to prison for a year for leaving bacon outside a Mosque he died six months in.