Divisional Court
| DOI | 10.1177/002201838504900103 |
| Published date | 01 February 1985 |
| Date | 01 February 1985 |
| Subject Matter | Case Notes |
DIVISIONAL
COURT
PUBLIC
ORDER
ACf
1936,
SECfION
5
Parrish v. Garfitt
Can the mere presence of a person in a crowd, charged with
threatening behaviour, be used to raise a prima facie case of
participation by that person in the crowd's unlawful acts? This was
the question in the present case of Parrish v. Garfitt [1984] 1
W.L.R. 911. A crowd of 150 football fans had rampaged through
the streets of Bristol for over 1,100 yards, throwing bottles and
stones, breaking windows
and
terrifying residents.
The
police first
concentrated on isolating this unruly gang. When they had done so
they made arrests
under
section 5 of
the
Public
Order
Act 1936 (as
amended):
"Any
person who in any public place or at any public
meeting-(a)
uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or
behaviour
...
with intent to provoke abreach of the peace or
whereby abreach of the peace is likely to be occasionedshall be
guilty of an offence."
On being convicted of threatening behaviour
under
this section,
six members of the crowd appealed.
Their
appeal was based on the
argument
that
although the crowd of which they were a
part
was
guilty of threatening behaviour, they, as members of
the
crowd
could not be guilty because
there
was no specific evidence against
them as individuals.
Lord Widgery
C.l.
was quite satisfied
that
the justices had
considered this aspect of
the
case
and
had realised that they could
not punish any individual unless they were satisfied
that that
individual
had
played some
part
in
the
threatening behaviour. He
cited R. v. Allan [1965] 1Q.B. 130 to show that, provided these
individuals
had
voluntarily remained members of the unruly crowd,
they were to be regarded as taking
part
in
the
threatening
behaviour.
At
the
very least their presence must have encouraged
the participants. The police had isolated the crowd: they had
watched its threatening behaviour and said
that
any individual
7
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