In the Irish Courts
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836102500306 |
| Published date | 01 July 1961 |
| Date | 01 July 1961 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
In the Irish Courts
COURT
OF
APPEAL
IN
NORTHERN
IRELAND
WHAT
IS A
PUBLIC
PLACE?
Montgomery v. Loney
IN an ever-extending series of cases,
the
English
and
Scottish courts have discussed
the
meaning of the
term
"public
place", but, as was pointed
out
in Montgomery v.
Loney (1959,
N.l.
171),
the
term
appears to have no fixed or
uniform meaning, as used in statutes.
Of
the
earlier cases,
the majority of the
Court
of Appeal in
Northern
Ireland
preferred
the
Scottish decision expressed in
the
judgment
of
Lord
Clyde in Harrison v. Hill (1932,
S.C.(J.)
16), while
the
conclusion reached in England by
Lord
Goddard
C.}.
in Elkins v. Cartlidge (1947, 1
All
E.R. 829)
that
apublic place
is a place to which
the
public have access in fact was declared
to be too wide, in that, for instance, roads are
not
public
places if
the
right of entry to
them
is limited to employees
or to persons with passes.
In
Montgomery v. Loney (supra),
the
defendant was charged with contravening s. 39 of the Road
Traffic Act (Northern Ireland), 1955, which provides
that
every person who is in charge of a motor vehicle on any road
or other public place, while he is
under
the influence of drink,
shall be guilty of an offence. By s. 75 of
the
Act,
"road"
includes
"a
public road or any street, carriageway, highway
or roadway to which
the
public have access".
The
place in
question in
the
instant case was the forecourt of a petrol filling
station, situated five yards back from
the
edge of a public road,
the
pumps
being on an island between two carriageways,
each of which was permanently open to the public road at
both ends, there being a fence merely between
the
entry
and the exit.
The
owner impliedly invited motorists to come
on to these premises to purchase petrol,
and
he had ashop
in which motorists' requisites (and cigarettes) were for sale;
but
he excluded persons other
than
customers and others
210
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