Redmond-Bate v DPP
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 23 July 1999 |
| Date | 23 July 1999 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Queen's Bench Divisional Court.
Before Lord Justice Sedley and Mr Justice Collins
Freedom of speech - freedom to be offensive defended by court
Free speech included not only the inoffensive but also the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome, and the provocative, as long as such speech did not tend
to provoke violence.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court so held in allowing an appeal by way of case stated against the dismissal by Wakefield Crown Court, (Judge Hoffman and justices) on January 13, 1999, of an appeal by Mrs Alison Redmond-Bate against her conviction by Wakefield Justices, on February 3, 1998, of obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty, contrary to section 89(2) of the Police Act 1996.
On October 2, 1997 Mrs Alison Redmond-Bate had been preaching on the steps of Wakefield Cathedral to passers-by in the street.
In response to a complaint, PC Tennant approached the her and other woman preachers. No crowd had gathered, but he warned them not to stop people and since they were not stopping people he left.
PC Tennant later returned to find that a crowd of in excess of a hundred people had gathered. Some members of the crowd were showing hostility towards the speakers.
Fearing a breach of the peace, PC Tennant asked the women to stop preaching and when they refused arrested them for a breach of the peace.
Mr Philip Rouse for Mrs Alison Redmond-Bate; Mr Charles Brian Kealy for the prosecution.
LORD JUSTICE SEDLEY said that the underlying question was whether it was reasonable for PC Tennant, in light of what he perceived, to believe that Mrs Redmond-Bate was about to cause a breach of the peace.
The test of reasonableness of the constable's action was objective in the sense that it was for the court to decide not whether the view taken by the constable fell within the broad band of rational decisions but whether in the light of what he knew and perceived at the time the court was satisfied that it was reasonable to fear an imminent breach of the peace.
Thus, although reasonableness of belief, as elsewhere in the law of arrest, was a question for the court, it was to be evaluated without the qualification of hindsight.
The next critical question for the constable, and in turn for the court, was where the threat was coming from, because it was there that the preventive action must be...
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