Section 89 – Obstruction of a Police Officer. Obstruction includes not providing a police officer with information he believes you may have. Green and Black Cross say “Being limp makes it more difficult for a police officer to move you, and is not obstruction”
The Public Order Act 1986 (POA86)
Section 12 and Section 14 allows the police* to designate the space in which you are allowed to march (Section 12) or assemble (Section 14) by using barriers, fencing and sometimes going as far as a building a metal wall.
Section 2 and Section 3 – Violent Disorder and Affray is not used as commonly as Section 12 and 14 but it is at the disposal of the police force to utilise. This carries a sentence of 5 years imprisonment and is used on protests that turn violent.
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (CJPO94)
Section 60 and 60aa known as the Stop and Search law empowers the police* to decide that protesters should be allowed to cover their faces and-or not be allowed to carry anything that could be used as a weapon. Placards are included in this vague definition.
Obstruction of the Highway (particularly S137) This refers (loosely) to the obstruction of passage of any space in which the public passes such as a road, a footpath, an alley , a foot bridge, a shop front etc.
The Anti-Social Behavioral Act 2003 (ASBA03)
Part 4 empowers the police* and community support officers to issue dispersal orders to any group of two or more people, within a designated area based on their own evualation* of the reason for such a gathering.
The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2014 (PRSRA14)
Section 01 – Power to grant injunctions.
Section 142-148 deals with Parliament Square in particular. The sections all but render self-organized protest fundamentally illegal without actually saying so (which would be illegal!) They prohibit anything that may constitute a protest to be illegal unless permission to hold that protest is given by the owner of the land – in this case the Greater London Authority , who in turn ask for liability insurance and a license fee.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014
Section 35 – Directions excluding a person (or persons) from an area. This is used considerably in anti-fracking protests.
Common Law
Another police tactic known as kettling was ruled lawful in common law in the High Court in 2009 and 2012 (in a separate case) by the European Court of Human Rights. This involves surrounding a protest completly and only allow individuals out of a ‘fully cordoned’ area one by one from one designated outlet. There often is a police videographer in that outlet to take your image as you exit the area. From personal experience I can confidently say that being caught in a kettle is intimadating to the extreme and leaving the kettle is not a simple task because 1) the outlet is not readily made available, first the herd you like kettle and take away your liberty to leave 2) the protesters are pushed together and cannot see where the outlet may be 3) getting to the outlet is not always easy if a number of protested around the outlet choose to not leave. It seems needless to say that this tactic puts off passers by from joining and learning about the issue of the protest.
After an arrest the prosectutor may try and up the charges. For example in a recent case yet to be heard, the prosecuters upped the charge from Obstruction of the Highway to Conspiracy to Cause Violent Disorder (both sections in the Public Order Act 1986) for a spectacle type protest that blocked a highway. The latter charge is more serious, carries a likely prison sentence and most importantly here, a jury would have been required to hear it. The activists maintained a plea of not guilty taking their chances with the jury. The prosecuters then reduced the charge again. It is presumed that the police were vying for a ‘guilty’ plea with intimidation of a more serious crime. A ‘guilty’ plea tends to encourage judges to give smaller sentence because of the perceived co-operation.
I put this information here to highlight that even once the charge is implemented it seems it can be changed and it is important to seek legal advice on what your options are.
This post is an appendix to the blog-post : Shrinking Campaign Space By Law which is part of the Masters Course in Media, Campaigning and Social Change.