Statutory interpretation – police powers

Saturday 28 November 2009 at 9:04 am | In News | Post Comment

*Semple v Luton and South Bedfordshire Magistrates’ Court [2009] QBD
[Statutory interpretation – absurd result if statute interpreted literally]
D punched a police constable in the face. The PC was assisting the landlord of a pub to eject D because he was drunk. D was convicted in the Magistrates’ Court and appealed by way of case stated. If the officer had been acting outside his duty when the D had punched him D would be not guilty of assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty.

Held: A constable could use reasonable force when ejecting a customer when required to assist a licence-holder. Implicit in a licence-holder’s request for assistance in ejecting a customer from his premises was the request that the customer be prevented from re-entering those premises immediately.

Any other construction of s 143(4) of the 2003 Act would be absurd. A licence-holder had such powers in respect of a customer, so for a constable’s powers only to be those of arrest in those circumstances would make no sense.
The relevant legislative provision is Sec 143 of the Licensing Act 2003. The previous provision had been s 174(3) of the Licensing Act 1964. The 1964 Act provided that an officer ejecting a person from a pub was expressly empowered to use ‘such force as may be required for the purpose’ those words had been omitted from the 2003 Act.

Guilty

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