Police Law Blog European Decisions Statutory Materials

Arrest for breach of the peace

Many police practitioners will pause on learning that they are instructed in a case involving an arrest for breach of the peace. The reason being – that the law on when an arrest can be made is not always well understood by arresting officers. That is not to be discourteous to the police. Rather, it is a recognition of how complicated this issue can be. The Supreme Court in the case of R (Hicks) v Comr Metropolitan Police [2017] UKSC 9 gives some assistance to the police where they seek to arrest persons in light of an imminent breach of the peace and provides a simpler statement of the law than did the Court of Appeal.

Lorenzo: The Perils of the Insufficient Time Estimate in a Police Jury Trial

As the civil courts are being exhorted to take an ever more stringent stance on proportionality, the recent Court of Appeal decision in Lorenzo v The Chief Constable of the West Midlands [2012] EWCA Civ 1863 is a timely reminder of the importance of providing a cautious, realistic time estimate for civil jury trials. It contains a number of other painful lessons to be learned for jury trial preparation.