Police Powers: Entry and Arrest
| Author | Alan Davenport |
| Published date | 01 April 2005 |
| Date | 01 April 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1350/jcla.69.2.98.63525 |
| Subject Matter | Divisional Court |
H
ELD
,
DISMISSING THE APPLICATIONS
:
1. It should have been recognised that the publicity about the orders,
especially the use of photographs, might have infringed Article
8.
2. Had this been recognised, the police and local authority should
have gone on to consider whether the publicity was necessary and
proportionate to their legitimate aims.
3. Although the matter had not been dealt with as it should have
been under 1 and 2 above, in this case it made no difference.
4. Publicity, which is intended to inform, reassure or assist in en-
forcement of the orders or to inhibit the behaviour of the subjects
of the orders or others, was unlikely to be effective without
photographs, names and at least partial addresses. Other content
must depend upon the facts of each case. In some cases, such as
here, colourful language was entirely appropriate and needed in
order to attract readers’ attention.
5. There was no basis for contending that the area of leaflet distribu-
tion should have been restricted to the exclusion zone named in
the orders. There was a properly targeted area having regard to the
need to inform and enforce.
6. The need for those considering post-order publicity to have in
mind Convention rights must, however, be emphasised. If such
consideration is given and recorded (perhaps with the help of
further guidance issued from the Home Office), the possibility of
proceedings such as these should be eliminated.
C
OMMENTARY
It seems to have been accepted that a desire simply to punish those made
subject to the orders by naming and shaming could not be a legitimate
basis for the publicity methods employed in this case. That there could
be legitimate Article 8 aims in publicising ASBOs in particular seems
beyond argument. The problem here is that the police and local author-
ity appear to have completely ignored any Article 8 rights in reaching
their decisions about the method, extent and content of that publicity.
However, the court gave the argument about this fairly short shrift,
perhaps unsurprisingly on the facts of this particular case. What might
have been more challenging for the court was consideration of Article 8
and other Convention rights where there was no actual order to be
publicised or enforced, for example, publicity which included a photo-
graph of a persistent burglar who operated in a particular area.
Allison Clare
Police Powers: Entry and Arrest
Blench v Director of Public Prosecutions [2004] EWHC 2717 (Admin)
Bedfordshire Police received a 999 call from a distressed woman claim-
ing that a drunken man was attempting to remove her child from her.
The Journal of Criminal Law
98
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