R v Caird
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SACHS |
| Judgment Date | 19 August 1970 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1970] EWCA Crim J0819-6 |
| Docket Number | No. 4047/R/70, 4049/R/70 No. 4045/R/70, 4044/R/70 No. 4042/R/70, 4043/R/70 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 19 August 1970 |
[1970] EWCA Crim J0819-6
Lord Justice Sachs
Mr. Justice Lyell
and
Mr. Justice Cusack
No. 4047/R/70, 4049/R/70
No. 4048/R/70, 4046/R/70
No. 4045/R/70, 4044/R/70
No. 4042/R/70, 4043/R/70
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
MR. ERIC MYERS, Q.C., and LORD GIFFORD appeared on behalf of the Applicants Caird, John and Household.
MR. L. CAPLAN, Q.C., and MR. B. HIGGS appeared on behalf of the Applicants Lagden and Emley.
MR. BASIL WIGODER, Q.C., and MR. N. FREEMAN appeared on behalf of the Applicants Williams and Newton.
MR. BASIL WIGODER, Q.C. and MR. I. BROWNLIE appeared on behalf of the Applicant Bodea.
MR. MICHAEL EASTHAM, Q.C., and MR. J. BLOFELD appeared on behalf of the Crown.
On the 24th June at Hertford Assize fifteen defendants were arraigned on a count of riotous assembly at Cambridge on the evening of the 13th February. Some of them were also arraigned on charges arising out of what occurred on the same occasion of assaulting Police Constables in the execution of their duties, of malicious damage and of possessing offensive weapons.
On the 2nd July, after a trial that lasted seven working days, of these fifteen defendants seven were acquitted on all charges. Of the other eight seven were convicted either of riotous or unlawful assembly and six of these seven were also convicted on further counts to which reference will be made later. The fifteenth defendant Williams was found not guilty of riotous and unlawful assembly, but guilty of possessing an offensive weapon.
Of the eight found guilty on one charge or another six were aged 21 or more - one being aged 24 and another 25. Of the remaining two one was aged 20 and the other 19. The eight found guilty were on the 3rd July sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from nine months to eighteen months, save that the two aged less than 21 were ordered to have Borstal Training.
Of the eight three, the Applicants Caird, Newton and Williams, applied for leave to appeal against conviction. All eight applied for leave to appeal against sentence. As the nine months' sentences ranked as relatively short, the applications were ordered to be heard in the Vacation. None of the Applicants applied to be present during the hearing of those applications.
That on the 13th February at Cambridge there was an unlawful and riotous assembly of most serious proportions at the Garden House Hotel is something which is obvious. It has not been and could not have been disputed in this Court.
In order that the gravity of an individual in any way participating in that assembly may be properly assessed it is essential at the outset to say something of the scene and of the mob violence that the assembly produced. The Garden House Hotel, which became the object of prolonged attack, is one of the best known in Cambridge. It is situated adjacent to the river and part of Peterhouse College is close to it. Its entrance doors are approached through a garden which contains a rockery. It has on the ground floor a dining room in what is called the River Suite, with a number of windows facing on to the grounds of the hotal. There is a special entrance to that Suite by doors with glass panels. This area has been called the back of the hotel.
For the evening of the 13th February the management of the hotel had planned a Dinner and Dance in the River Suite. It was to be a social occasion; it was not a political occasion with speeches. It was planned to be one of a series of such occasions each designed to convey the atmosphere of a particular country. This one was to have a Greek atmosphere. The menu and wine were to have a Greek flavour. It was arranged to coincide with a "Greek Week" in Cambridge. It was timed to start at 7.30 in the evening. It was attended by numbers of guests from amongst the residents of the hotel and from outside. These people had had no intention other than to enjoy themselves peaceably on this occasion. They included visitors coming to celebrate wedding anniversaries and visitors coming to celebrate other anniversaries. There is no evidence of anyone attending from a political motive.
Before the dinner, however, leaflets were distributed by some persons who, for political reasons, resented the fact that there was to be a dinner with a Greek flavour. Numbers of students and others were incited to gather outside the hotel. They did so gather. They, in fact, assembled in large numbers at first opposite to the front entrance and later at the back of the hotel. They were in the garden of the hotel where they were, of course, trespassers, and at the material time they became a crowd of something like 300 or 4-00 people.
From the outset there was shouting. Soon it became clear that a large number of them had developed a common purpose of wrecking the dinner. They tried to stop people entering the hotal of whom they managed to injure at any rate one (the wife of a lecturer at the University) and frighten others. Before long a really threatening situation developed. In due course a thin line of Police was drawn up in front of the River Suite windows and of the glass doors that led into it, which were closed. A considerable proportion of the mob massed, rank upon rank up against this line., and were determined to break through the Police cordon, to force their way into the hotel and to reduce the dinner to a shambles. The way in which they surged aggressively forward to overwhelm the Police in their protective duties was rightly described by one of the Officers as one of great violence and truly frightening.
During the initial period, and indeed later as well, a loudspeaker specially installed in the Peterhouse room of a senior don, one Dr. Vincent, was fanning the crowd and was attacking the Police by calling them "Fascists". It was referring to the guests as "pimps, pleasure-seekers and prostitutes". (It should be mentioned that Dr. Vincent was present in the assembly, and although one leading counsel for the defence stated that he would be called, in fact, he did not become a witness).
Even before the attackers broke into the hotel the conditions inside were alarming in the extreme. Numbers of the mob were pounding on the windows. Others clambered on the flat roof and stamped on it so that the ceiling shook and the room as a whole vibrated. Then, as the attack developed at the back, those concerned relied not merely on sheer force of numbers in pushing the Police out of the way, but went further. They broke the windows of the dining room and hurled a variety of missiles through them. These included rocks from the rockery, a half brick, clods of earth, and lighted mole fuses which flamed as they went through the windows. One such fuse was directly thrown lighted at one Police Officer and other missiles of the type already mentioned and including incidentally a bag of red paint were also thrown at the Police Officers. The lamp standards in the garden of a type which one can see in London streets, were torn up and broken. The lighting installation outside was deliberately tampered with and darkness resulted.
In those circumstances the attackers succeeded in forcing their way into the hotel. On at least two occasions they caused the Police to be tumbled into the entrance with the attackers on top of them. Others made their way through the windows that had been broken by them. When inside they used typical hooligan methods. Tables were overturned, glass was smashed, a dumbwaiter full of crockery was deliberately overturned so that everything so far as could be seen was smashed. Curtains were torn down and in one instance a lighted mole fuse was thrown at the drapery creating the danger of fire. Chairs were brandished and thrown: and a chair was used to hit a guest on the head.
In the result there was a scene of terrifying violence. At any rate two. people, one Police Constable Taylor and a proctor, received serious injuries. The former was off duty for several weeks, the latter had to have stitches in a wound in the head. Many others received minor injuries, including cuts from flying glass. One was dazed by being beaten on the head by a chair, others were knocked about in one way or another. Women were screaming and fleeing: at least two were rendered hysterical. Many correctly described themselves as terrified. A number made their way to the ladies' toilet and locked themselves in in fright.
Taken as a whole, this vicious scene with attacks spreading over at least two-and-a-half hours was one which was an outrage in any community whether it occurred in some unsalubrious quarter of a dock city or a place like Cambridge. By the end of the occasion that produced all this violence and lasted so long, some eighty Police together with dogs had to be brought to the scene to restore order. The shambles had been achieved. Over £2,000 worth of damage had been done and the evening successfully devastated as a pleasurable occasion. The final trail of hooliganism was provided by a number of cars with tyres deflated.
There has been canvassed before this Court the distinction between unlawful and riotous assemblies. Unlawful assemblies and riotous assemblies take many forms. Without, of course, attempting a full definition, the difference can be stated in broad terms applicable to occasions of the particular type under consideration. The moment persons in a crowd, however peaceful their original intention, commence to act for some shared common purpose supporting each other...
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