An Englishman’s home is still his Castle, even if you climb in through the window! As regular readers of this blog will know, the integrity of the home is a fundamental principle of the law of England and Wales which I am proud to uphold on behalf of those many clients of mine who have faced a Police ‘invasion’ of their property and privacy. The latest such client I have assisted is Mr Peter Murphy.
Peter is a 53 year-old man and former Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games Senior Spokesman, who at the time of these events resided in a ground- floor flat in the Wiltshire town of Marlborough.
In the early evening of 31 July 2020, PC Miller of Wiltshire Police attended at my client’s property. PC Miller spoke with Peter’s neighbour, who alleged that Peter had approached him with what appeared to be a knife in his pocket and had threatened people. On further questioning, however, Peter’s neighbour stated that it ‘could have been’ simply my client’s hand in his pocket, rather than a knife. For the avoidance of doubt, Peter Murphy did not threaten his neighbour or anyone else with a knife and nor was he is possession of such a weapon. It was a false accusation.
PC Miller approached Peter’s ground-floor flat and opened a window; through that window he spoke to my client, who was inside the flat, and who stated that he did not wish to discuss the matter. PC Miller then informed Peter that he was under arrest for an unspecified “Public Order Offence”, because he was refusing to provide his account of the incident.
PC Miller then took a leaf out of the burglar’s book and climbed into Peter’s property through the window, completely uninvited. Peter was shocked but remained polite/ calm. Nevertheless, the energetic PC Miller now grabbed Peter and placed his right wrist into handcuffs, before forcing him face down onto a couch, knocking his glasses off in the process, and cuffing his left wrist with the assistance of another officer who also leant in through the window. Again, Peter remained impeccably calm and did not resist, notwithstanding this gross violation of his home space and the totally unnecessary force being used to ‘shackle’ him in that home.
PC Miller now stated that he had arrested Peter for an alleged breach of Section 4 of the Public Order Act.
Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 provides as follows-
Fear or provocation of violence.
(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)uses towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or
(b)distributes or displays to another person any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,
with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or another by any person, or to provoke the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or another, or whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked.
…
(4)A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or both.
PC Miller then proceeded to search Peter and found a vape – not a knife – in his pocket. Peter fully co-operated with this search. Nevertheless, the Officers continued to treat him roughly; he was escorted outside and forcibly bundled into the rear of a police car, without his glasses and with only one shoe.
PC Miller spoke to a female officer and confirmed to her that no ‘knife’ had actually been seen, even on the complainant’s own account.
Peter was then transported to Melksham Custody Suite (I will pause here to observe that the word ‘Suite’ is a gross euphemism for what is, in reality, a Police Prison complex – this is not a ‘suite’ any of us would want to check into…)
PC Miller stated to the Custody Sergeant that he had arrested Peter on suspicion of a Public Order offence due to Peter’s refusal to “engage” with him, but notably did not address the question of the necessity of arrest. See my previous blog here about the ‘necessity criteria’ for arrest and why Officers must always consider less intrusive means of investigating an alleged offence than arrest.
The Custody Sergeant advised my client that she was authorising his detention so that the Police could “secure and preserve evidence” and “obtain evidence by question” i.e conduct an interview of Peter, under caution. Peter was taken to a cell, where he was further searched.
After Peter had been escorted to his cell, but now known to us because of the Custody Desk CCTV recording, PC Miller informed the Custody Sergeant that “if he [Peter Murphy] had spoken to me, I would have given him a ticket there and then and been done with it, instead I squeezed my athletic figure through a window…”.
Throughout his detention, Peter politely asked to be released and was repeatedly told that he would be released after he was interviewed. This was also recorded in the Custody Record. At 19:38, Officer Hunnisett recorded that “…DPA stated he wanted to go home, to which I stated he needs to be interviewed about the allegation”. At 19:40, Officer Griffiths recorded that “DP has buzzed up to the desk asking if he can be released, I have tried to explain that he needs to be interviewed first…”
At 20:58, it was recorded on the custody record that the duty solicitor had been contacted and was awaiting a call for an interview.
At 04.30, Peter was brought out of his cell. He complained of bruises to both of his wrists from the (unnecessary) application of handcuffs.
In the end, Peter was charged with breaching Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and released from custody at around 05:00 on 1 August 2020 without being interviewed. No explanation was provided to him, or recorded in the Custody Record as to why he had not been interviewed, despite the fact that throughout the night this had been the only apparent ‘justification’ for Peter’s continued incarceration.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 provides as follows-
Harassment, alarm or distress.
(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)uses threatening [or abusive] words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b)displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening [or abusive],
within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.
...
(6)A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
It need hardly be added that the subsequent prosecution of Peter failed at trial, and he was completely exonerated from any wrongdoing.
Defending the Castle
After hearing about what had happened to Peter, I was keen to help him, and curious to examine the evidence. At the outset, my focus was on the Police’s failure to interview Peter notwithstanding that this appeared to be the justification to arrest and detain him. Accordingly, I insisted that all available Body Worn Camera and Custody CCTV footage be preserved. In due course, that evidence was disclosed to me by Wiltshire Police, along with a blanket denial of liability.
However, on review of the footage I immediately noticed the disjunct between the purported arrest of Peter under the more serious Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986, and PC Miller’s remark that he would have issued Peter with a “ticket” if Peter had spoken with him about the allegations. The implication of PC Miller’s remark was that he was intending to issue my client with a Penalty Notice (or “ticket”) for an offence committed under the less serious Section 5 Public Order Act 1986 (see above), rather than Section 4, because contravening the latter did not permit PC Miller to issue a Penalty Notice.
Whereas the more minor offence (Section 5) did allow the issuing of a Penalty Notice, it did not allow an Officer to enter uninvited into a person’s home to effect an arrest for that offence. Section 17 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) extends the power of entry, without a warrant, to a Constable intending to arrest a person for a Section 4 offence, but not a Section 5 offence.
This strongly suggested that PC Miller had improperly claimed to have a reasonable suspicion that Peter had committed a Section 4 Public Order Act offence (when in reality the Officer only suspected a lesser offence under Section 5) so as to justify his entering the flat to arrest Peter. If that was correct then the Officer, lacking honest suspicion of the Section 4 offence, was a trespasser when he entered the flat, was committing assault and battery when he laid hands on Peter, and the arrest itself, and consequent deprivation of my client’s liberty, was unlawful from the outset.
Furthermore, there was no evidence from the complainant, Peter’s neighbour, that he had actually seen Peter holding or threatening to use a ‘knife’. The case against my client, even at its highest, was weak and insubstantial. PC Miller and his colleagues appear to have completely overlooked the possibility of dealing with this matter, if it had to be further investigated at all, by inviting my client to attend the Police Station for a voluntary interview, which would have saved him the shame, stress, humiliation and deprivation of liberty that an arrest entails. No knife, but the Police certainly found “a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.
To compound Police culpability in this matter yet further, was the fact that Peter’s detention in custody, in excess of 10 hours, was supposedly so that he could be interviewed under caution, but no such interview ever took place, despite the Police having ample opportunity to do so. Even if Peter’s initial arrest had been justified, the continuance of his detention for no proper purpose – holding him for an interview that never came – would have given him grounds to sue for false imprisonment. But my considered assessment was now that there never was a basis to arrest, and the Police reluctance to conduct an interview just bore that out; after all, what do you interview a suspect about, when you have no real reason to suspect him of anything?
Peter initially went to the Police Complaints system for redress, only to have his complaint rejected by Wiltshire Police Professional Standards, who in their response deployed that robotic- sounding, passive-aggressive mantra : “The service provided was acceptable.”
Peter himself certainly did not ‘accept’ that opinion, however, neither did I.
He also contacted Philip Wilkinson, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Swindon and Wiltshire, and sought an investigation into his arrest and prosecution.
In the circumstances, on my advice, Peter issued Court proceedings against the Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police, who in light of the evidence now agreed to settle, agreeing to pay Peter £8,000 compensation, plus his legal costs.
My firm view of this case is that Peter Murphy’s arrest was entirely unlawful. All he was actually doing was maintaining the borders of his home against unwarranted intrusion by an agent of the State, who should have respected his refusal not to submit to questioning.
Now Peter has – metaphorically – thrown the invaders from his castle and reaffirmed its integrity, and his own, with this excellent settlement, achieved with my expert assistance and his own courageous pursuit of justice.
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