Public Order: Immediacy of Unlawful Violence under S. 4
| Author | Christopher J. Newman |
| Published date | 01 April 2009 |
| Date | 01 April 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1350/jcla.2009.73.2.554 |
| Subject Matter | Divisional Court |
Divisional Court
Public Order: Immediacy of Unlawful Violence under s. 4
Liverpool vDirector of Public Prosecutions [2008] EWHC 2540 (Admin)
Keywords Public Order; Unlawful Violence; Threatening Behaviour
The appellant was approached by the victim (S) and was confronted
about having given the victim’s 14-year-old son a lift and offering him
cannabis. S told the appellant that he was not to do either of those
things. In response, the appellant used foul language in a very loud voice
over a sustained period. In amongst this verbal attack were personal
insults and threats to S, whereby the appellant stated that on previous
occasions he had chased a person with a knife and a gun. The appellant
said that he would shoot S and made a shooting gesture with his fingers.
As a result of this altercation with the appellant, and fearing that he did
indeed have a gun, S gradually retreated into a nearby building. The
police were called and the appellant was arrested and charged with an
offence under s. 4 of the Public Order Act 1986. Section 4(1) of the 1986
Act provides, inter alia, that a person will be guilty of an offence if he uses
towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or
behaviour with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate,
unlawful violence will be used against him.
At the trial, the justices found that the appellant had indeed gestured
towards S as if firing a gun and threatened to kill her. Throughout the
incident the justices believed the appellant had been aggressive and
verbally abusive towards S, in a loud and threatening manner. They
concluded that the evidence indicated that the appellant had used
threatening, abusive or insulting words with intent to cause S to believe
that immediate, unlawful violence would be used against her. Accord-
ingly the appellant was found guilty of the offence under s. 4 of the 1986
Act.
The subsequent appeal, by way of case stated, posed the question to
the Divisional Court as to whether the victim, S, had feared the infliction
of unlawful immediate violence. It was submitted that the justices were
not entitled to conclude that the appellant intended S to believe im-
mediate unlawful violence was about to be used because the appellant’s
actions did not indicate he was about to subject S to immediate
violence.
H
ELD
,
DISMISSING THE APPEAL
, the court decided that the combina-
tion of the hand gesture and the loud, threatening language provided
ample justification for the conclusion reached by the justices at the trial.
The court was of the view that the law was sufficiently clear insofar as
the word ‘immediate’ does not have to mean ‘instantaneous’. The court
referred to the judgment of Watkins LJ in R vHorseferry Road Metropolitan
Stipendiary Magistrate, ex p. Siadatan [1991] 1 QB 260, [1991] 1 All ER 324
where it was stated that ‘immediate’ connotes proximity in time and
123The Journal of Criminal Law (2009) 73 JCL 123–125
doi:1350/jcla.2009.73.2.554
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