LORD PARKER, C.J.: In the early hours of the morning n(1) of Mar. 8, 1965, Police Constable Baillie was out on patrol duty on his pedal cycle in
and around Oxford Street, Grimsby. A number of breaking offences had been committed that night, and the officer was looking out to see if he could see anyone behaving suspiciously. One indeed of these breakings had been committed quite close to where he was, within the previous forty-five minutes. He saw a man who turned out to be the appellant behaving suspiciously, looking into shop windows, looking round, seeing the constable and moving up a side street, coming back later from the side street and going along looking at further shops, and keeping a wary eye on the constable. A time came when Police Constable Baillie, who had by then been joined by another police constable, went up and stopped the appellant. Police Constable Baillie asked where he was going, and the appellant ignored the inquiry, though he heard it. The police constable again asked him where he was going and where he had come from and for his name and address, whereupon the appellant replied:
"Give me a good reason why I should". In due course the appellant was allowed to walk away, and when he had got a little distance away he stopped to light his pipe; the police officers then saw that he had got a cut on his finger. They went up to him again, and again Police Constable Baillie asked for his name and address. After again being asked a second time, he merely replied: "Rice, Convamore Road". That incidentally was true as far as it went. The police constable said that he wanted his full name and address, and the appellant refused to give it.
Finally the police constable asked the appellant to accompany him to a police box to confirm his identity, whereupon the appellant replied:
"Look, son, I am not moving from this spot. If you want me you will have to arrest me"; thereupon the police constable arrested him and gave as the ground for arrest that he had obstructed him in the execution of his duty in that he refused to say where he was going, where he had come from and had refused to give his full name and address, and had refused to accompany him to the police box. Those were the facts as found by the recorder, with these additions, that throughout the appellant's manner had been sarcastic and awkward, that when, long after the arrest, he was seen by an inspector, the appellant said:
The time was about 12.45 a.m.
"I have been arrested. You cannot de-arrest me. It might be worth a bob or two to me. I've done nothing wrong. I am arrested, what are you going to do?"
Lastly it is found that in fact the appellant never was charged with any of the breaking offences in the neighbourhood, nor were there ever any
grounds for suspecting that he was guilty of any of them. It was in those circumstances that the recorder expressed his decision in these
terms:
"I was of the opinion that on the facts as stated above and having regard to those set out in para. [5] (vii) [i.e., the remarks made after arrest to the inspector] the appellant had deliberately intended to distract Police Constable Baillie from his duties and had thereby wilfully obstructed Police Constable Baillie in the due execution of his duty and was guilty of the offence charged. I therefore dismiss the appeal."
The question left for the opinion of the court is whether the recorder was right in finding that the conduct of the appellant on the facts stated amounted to a wilful obstruction of the police constable in the due execution of his duty.
The statute creating the alleged offence in this case is s. 51 (3) of the Police Act 1964, which increases the penalties for assaults on police constables and obstruction of them in the execution of their duty, but otherwise preserves largely as offences those which appeared in earlier legislation. What the prosecution have to prove is that there was an obstructing of a constable, that the constable was at the time acting in the execution of his duty, and that the person obstructing did so wilfully. To carry the matter a little further, it is in my view clear that to "obstruct" in s. 51 (3) is to do any act which makes it more difficult for the police to carry out their duty. That description of obstructing I take from the case of Hinchcliffe v. Sheldon. It is also in my judgment clear that it is part of the obligations and duties of a police constable to take all steps which appear to him necessary for keeping the peace, for preventing crime or for protecting property from criminal injury. There is no exhaustive definition of the powers and obligations of the police, but they are at least those, and they would further include the duty to detect crime and to bring an offender to justice.
See s. 12 of the Prevention of Crime Act, 1871, as amended by s. 2 of the Prevention of Crimes Amendment Act, 1885; 5 HALSBURY'S STATUTES (2nd Edn.) 873, 915. Both s. 12 and the Act of 1885 are repealed by s. 64 (3) of, and Sch. 10 to, the Police Act 1964. Assaults on constables are rendered offences by s. 51 of the Act of 1964. The extension of the offence of assault, enacted in s. 12 of the Act of 1871, to wilfully obstructing a constable in the execution of his duty (which extension was enacted by s. 2 of the Act of 1885) is re-enacted in s. 51 (3) of the Act of 1964.
It is quite clear that the appellant was making it more difficult for the police to carry out their duties, and that the police at the time and throughout were acting in accordance with their duties. The only remaining element of the alleged offence, and the one on which in my judgment this case depends, is whether the obstructing of which the appellant was guilty was a wilful obstruction. "Wilful" in this context in my
judgment means not only "intentional" but also connotes something which is done without lawful excuse, and that indeed is conceded by counsel who appears for the prosecution in this case. Accordingly, the sole question here is whether the appellant had a lawful excuse for refusing to answer the questions put to him. In my judgment he had. It seems to me quite clear that though every citizen has a moral duty or, if you like, a social duty to assist the police, there is no legal duty to that effect, and indeed the whole basis of the common law is that right of the individual to refuse to answer questions put to him by persons in authority, and a refusal to accompany those in authority to any particular place, short, of course, of arrest. Counsel for the respondent has pointed out that it is undoubtedly an obstruction, and has been so held, for a person questioned by the police to tell a "cock-and-bull" story, to put the police off by giving them false information, and I think he would say:
well, what is the real distinction, it is very little away from giving false information to giving no information at all; if that does in fact make it more difficult for the police to carry out their duties then there is a wilful obstruction. In my judgment there is all the difference in the world between deliberately telling a false story, something which on no view a citizen has a right to do, and preserving silence or refusing to answer, something which he has every right to do. Accordingly, in my judgment, looked on in that perfectly general way, it was not shown that the refusal of the appellant to answer the questions or to accompany the police officer in the first instance to the police box was an obstruction without lawful excuse.
I would add this, that for my part I have very grave doubt whether the recorder was approaching the case on that basis. I think that the recorder had in mind that though the appellant had a perfect right to refuse to answer questions, his whole conduct in this instance and the answers he did give were such as to be a deliberate obstruction to the police. I say that for this reason, that he went out of his way to find that the appellant's manner throughout was sarcastic and awkward. He went on to recite that extraordinary attitude taken up by the appellant after arrest, in the conversation with the police inspector, and finally he said in his opinion that the appellant had deliberately intended to distract Police Constable Baillie from his duties. I cannot help feeling that the recorder here was giving full effect to the law as I understand it to be, but also was saying that the appellant's whole attitude and behaviour amounted to a distracting of the police constable from his duties.
However, there are certain difficulties in this in that neither counsel before us today has suggested that that is the true view of the recorder's decision in this case, and indeed counsel for the respondent has invited us to deal with the matter on the more general basis. Finally, I do see myself difficulties in upholding the recorder's decision on that ground, if that be the true ground of his decision. In the first place it would require conduct going further than what happened in this case to establish an obstruction, and secondly one of the matters, and apparently an important matter in the recorder's view, was the appellant's behaviour after his arrest, in front of the inspector; this was something long after the event, which could not be evidence of the awkward behaviour, if it was awkward, of the appellant at the time of the incident itself. In these circumstances I have come to the conclusion that this appeal succeeds.
MARSHALL, J.: I agree. In order to uphold this conviction it appears to me that one has to assent to the proposition that where a citizen is acting merely within his legal rights, he is thereby committing a criminal offence. I cannot see that the manner in which he does it can make any difference whatsoever, and for the reasons given by LORD PARKER, C.J., I agree that this appeal should be allowed.
JAMES, J.: For the reasons given by LORD PARKER, C.J., I also agree that this appeal should be allowed. For my own part I would only add this, that I would not go so far as to say that there may not be circumstances in which the manner of a person together with his silence could amount to an obstruction within the section; whether they do remains to be decided in any case that happens hereafter, not in this case, in which it has not been argued.
Appeal allowed. Conviction quashed.