As an expert in civil claims against the Police, a question which I am frequently asked is: “Can the Police arrest me because I won’t give them my name?” A question which I am not frequently asked is: “Can sitting politely on a bench constitute a breach of the peace?”
This blog will, for reasons which will become clear, answer both of those questions; although you may already know the answer to one of them.
As we live in a democracy, and not a “papers please” Police State, an Englishman’s (or Welshman’s) mind is as much his castle as his home, and the only circumstances, practically speaking, in which a Police Officer can arrest you simply for failing to give your name/ details (i.e. without otherwise having a reasonable suspicion that you have committed a criminal offence or been involved in a motor accident) is if you are the driver of a vehicle, under sections 164 – 165 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 or if, in these modern times, you are the operator of a ‘drone’ that requires evidence of competency to operate, under the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021, schedule 9, section 2.
On all other occasions, a person can refuse to give a Police Officer their name (including when they are being stopped and searched) unless the Officer’s demand for your name is tied to a reasonable suspicion on the part of the Officer that you are committing (or have committed) a criminal offence, for example Section 50 of the Police Reform Act 2002 which allows the Police to require you to give your name and address, but only if they believe you are or have been engaging in anti-social behaviour (as defined by section 2 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014).
Unfortunately, all too many Police Officers behave as if they do have the right to ‘take names’ from whomsoever they like, and resort to misrepresenting their powers, bluffing, threatening or even using force against people who fail to comply.
A particular egregious example of this sort of behaviour can be found in the case of my client Dean Pennington.
The background to this matter, which occurred one evening in January 2023, was that Dean had gone to meet a friend at Manchester Airport.
PC Healey and PC Hissy of Greater Manchester Police were on foot patrol in the public areas of the airport having been notified of a black male causing a disturbance.
PC Healey approached my client (who is white, not black), and who was sitting peacefully on an airport bench. There were few other people around in this area of the airport, owing to the relatively late hour. My client smiled at the Officer and spoke to him in an entirely mild-mannered way, and there was certainly no disturbance occurring, whether involving my client or anybody else. Dean had had a modest amount to drink, but was in no way behaving in a disorderly manner.
That however did not stop the following conversation from taking place –
PC: “What’s your name mate? Have you got any ID on you?”
Dean: “If I’m honest, I’m not gonna tell you.”
PC: “I’ll just lock you up then mate. It’s easier isn’t it?”
Dean, whilst correctly stating that he had nothing to hide, maintained his right not to have to give his name to the Officer, to which PC Healey responded: “It’s entirely up to you mate, you can either tell me your details, or I’ll just arrest you and then we’ll find them out at the Police Station.”
When Dean still refused to give his name in the face of this threat, PC Healey then immediately began applying handcuffs to him and when Dean asked why he was being ‘nicked’, the Officer replied, “Breach of the Peace”.
All of the above interaction had taken place in the space of approximately 45 seconds from ‘first contact’ to ‘arrest.’
I have to pause here and say that in all my years as an Actions against the Police lawyer, I have never seen a more shameless misuse of Breach of the Peace powers by an Officer. Often, I have seen situations in which there may be a grey area as to whether Breach of the Peace is occurring, or whether a Breach of the Peace might imminently occur if an Officer does not intervene, but that was not the case here. The situation was entirely peaceful.
Nevertheless, PC Healey proceeded with his arrest of my client.
“Legal Action ? I couldn’t give a toss”
Arrest for “Breach of the Peace” is a Common Law power that differs from the general powers of arrest granted by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE). It is not a criminal offence and you cannot be charged for it; Police Officers exercising this power can only detain you until the threat of breach of the peace has gone, at the most taking you before a Court to be “bound over” to keep the peace, but you cannot be prosecuted for ‘breaching the peace.’ (A prosecution for contempt of court might occur if you broke a ‘bind over’ order, but that is a further step removed).
Breach of the Peace is commonly defined, following the case of R v Howell [1982] QB 416 as follows –
“whenever harm is actually done or is likely to be done to a person or in his presence to his property or a person is in fear of being so harmed through an assault, an affray, a riot, unlawful assembly or other disturbance.”
On no-one’s honest analysis, can refusing to give your name to a nosey Police Constable amount to an “assault, affray or riot”.
As PC Healey and his colleague began to march the handcuffed Dean out of the airport terminal – under the pretences of this ‘phantom’ breach of the peace – Dean did not resist them, but warned the Officers that he was going to take “legal action” over this, to which PC Healey replied in a bored and disinterested tone –
“Take legal action, mate. I couldn’t give a toss.”
The two officers then stood Dean up against their patrol car, and commenced searching him.
When Dean again attempted to explain the law to PC Healey, saying “You can’t tell me ‘Give me your name’,” the Officer completely incorrectly asserted “I can.”
PC Healey then went on to explain his reasoning, like this – “Refusing to give details mate, you could be a murderer, couldn’t you, that’s on the run?” PC Hissy then chipped in “You could be wanted”, to which Dean quite fairly responded “I could be anything, but when I’m not, you need to answer.”
It is really quite disturbing that both of these GMP officers either genuinely misunderstood their powers to such a massive extent that they thought they could detain and search anyone who refused to identify themselves to them; or even worse, were prepared to deliberately break the law to get what they wanted. Perhaps, in the words of PC Healey, they really just “couldn’t give a toss.”
PC Hissy now tried again with Dean, telling him “Give us your name…that’s all you’ve got to do” – really giving the lie to any suggestion that this was about a ‘breach of the peace’. Rather, it was about ‘justifying’ an entirely speculative interrogation of Dean as to his identity.
These two Police officers, like many others no doubt, may have wished they did have a power to require people to identify themselves on demand, but the country in which such a power exists is not one whose laws these officers have sworn to uphold.
PC Healey, after confiscating Dean’s wallet and rifling through it, then established his name from one of his bank cards. However, the officers had not yet finished their impromptu interrogation. They asked Dean what area he lived in and then PC Healey issued the following further threat-
“You going to tell me your date of birth or are you going to make us do it the hard way?”
The officers continued to maintain their captivity of Dean, telling him they had now called for a van to transport him to custody. PC Hissy then reiterated the officers’ entirely unlawful plan of action – “Once you get to the Police Station…your ID will be verified, and we’ll establish whether you’re wanted for any offences… If you are wanted, you’ll be dealt with for the offences, if you’re not then you’ll be released.”
Seeking to end this ridiculous situation, and save everybody’s time, and given the fact that it was clear that these officers either didn’t understand or had no regard for the law, Dean now informed them of his date of birth.
When a Police National Computer (PNC) check on Dean’s details revealed that he was currently under bail conditions to reside at a specified address in Widnes, the officers now informed Dean that he was being further arrested for “breach of bail conditions” – to which he correctly pointed out that despite the late hour, he was not breaching those conditions as he was manifestly neither ‘living nor sleeping’ at the airport terminal. The bail conditions did not amount to a curfew, but the officers chose to interpret them as if they did – presumably pleased that they now had some other justification, no matter how ropey, with which to ‘dress up’ their initial unlawful arrest of Dean.
But all they were actually doing was compounding the Chief Constable’s liability to Dean in damages.
Dean was then taken into custody and further detained, during which time he was interviewed under caution, before being released without charge.
The Custody Sergeant who authorised Dean’s release wrote the following detailed analysis of the whole incident –
“I have reviewed the available evidence in this case and have seen the statement provided by [PC Healey]…
The brief circumstances are that the officer has attended reports of a male acting oddly, sniffing gas, drinking and causing concern to passengers. PC… has spoken to a male matching the description when the DP [Dean] has come and sat close the officer and the male, DP was intoxicated.
PC … has asked to provide his details but the DP has refused. Due to this the officer believed that he may be wanted or another reason. The officer also believed that he may have been involved in the incident that he was called to in the first place, however it was only noted that a black male was involved in this.
PC … states that as he suspected of him committing a public order offence, namely causing or likely to cause a breach of the peace by his behaviour resulting in members of the public calling the Police (no full explanation of what part breach of the peace this was). DP has refused again to provide his details and stated ‘GO ON THEN ARREST ME, I’M NOT TELLING YOU’. He was arrested for breach of the peace. This however is not further explained in the statement as there was no evidence to state that he was involved in this original matter so a breach of the peace is not made out so no further actions as insufficient evidence. The interviewing officer has also informed me that he was arrested for breaching his Court bail conditions, this information has also been passed from early shift custody Sgts so in regards this as he would not be presented before the Court within 24 hours he will be subject to NFA in respect of this.”
It is in my opinion outrageous that these officers abused the ancient Common Law power to prevent breach of the peace as an excuse to run PNC checks on a British citizen. The allegation of ‘breach of the peace’ was frankly nothing more than a ‘place-holder’ to cover the officers’ illegal detention and interrogation of Dean, and sadly (given GMP’s refusal to apologise for their behaviour) I suspect that they are far from the only Police officers who will resort to this or similar tactics either from ignorance, malice, egotism or some unworthy hybrid of all three of those vices.
Dean had warned PC Healey and PC Hissy at an early stage, however, that he had previously successfully sued Cheshire Police for £2,000 (I did not act for him in regards to that claim).
I am pleased to announce that in regards to this most recent incident, I have now recovered for Dean from Greater Manchester Police the sum of £8,500 damages, plus his legal costs.
Legal action? Perhaps they should give a toss…
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