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CRIMINAL LAW, EVIDENCE AND PROCEDURE - OFFENCES AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PUBLIC - OFFENCES RELATING TO THE EXECUTION OF CIVIL OR CRIMINAL PROCESS - OFFENCES RELATING TO CONSTABLES - RESISTANCE OR OBSTRUCTION - CONSTABLES - ASSAULTING POLICE IN EXECUTION OF DUTY — SELF-DEFENCE — ACCUSED ASSAULTING OFFICER IN WHAT HE BELIEVED TO BE SELF-DEFENCE — ACCUSED CONVICTED OF ASSAULTING POLICE OFFICER IN THE EXECUTION OF HIS DUTY — WHETHER BELIEF THAT POLICE OFFICER WAS A PRIVATE CITIZEN A GOOD DEFENCE
The appellant caused a disturbance in a bus queue while attempting to board a bus. He was restrained by an off-duty police officer who was in plain clothes. A struggle ensued between the appellant and the officer, in the course of which the officer told the appellant that he was a police officer, a statement which the appellant in his excited state honestly but unreasonably disbelieved. The appellant continued to hit the officer and was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty.
The appellant was convicted by magistrates on that charge. He appealed, contending, inter alia, that his belief that he was being subjected to an unjustified assault because of his genuine, albeit mistaken, belief that the officer was not a policeman was a good defence to the charge. The Divisional Court ([1981] 1 All ER 628) dismissed his appeal, holding that it was not a defence to a charge of assault that the accused honestly but mistakenly believed that his action was justified as being reasonable self- defence if there were no reasonable grounds for his belief.
The appellant appealed to the House of Lords: Held the well-established principle that to detain a man against his will without arresting him was an unlawful act and a serious interference with a citizen's liberty was subject to an equally well-established exception (which was not confined to detention effected by a police constable in the execution of his duty) that it was the right and duty at common law of every citizen in whose presence an actual or reasonably apprehended breach of peace was being or about to be committed to make the person who was breaking or threatening to break the peace refrain from so doing and, in appropriate cases, to detain him against his will.
It followed therefore that, even if the appellant's belief that the officer was a private citizen and not a constable had been correct, it would not have made his resistance to the officer's restraint of him lawful. The appeal would accordingly be dismissed.
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