With so many offences involving a public place such as the possession of a bladed or pointed
article many of you have quite rightly asked the question of what is the legal definition
of a public place as usual is a short answer and a long answer the short answer we can
look to the criminal Justice act 1972 section 33 which reads as follows public place includes
any highway and any other premises or place to which at the material time the public have
or are permitted to have access whether on payment or otherwise sensible doesn't it essentially
anywhere that the public have access or are permitted access with our payment or otherwise
but what about a football stadium the football pitch how about the communal area of the block
of flats how about a pub car park have at a pub car park when it's closed and locked
off all when it closed and not locked off these are the questions I'm looking at today
but first of all if you're new here, smash that subscribe button if you got questions of your own because
I hope you understand lots of those of you that follow my channel for a while by now
you will know that legislation codified law records to follow when they are presented
with a given set of facts but as always it's not that simple the court needs to look at
the law look at the set of facts try to determine what Parliament meant when they created this
law often there are guidance notes with Parliament or even looking to Hansard which is a record
of what was said in Parliament then they look at the set of facts and try to decide whether
those set of facts apply in the way that the law was intended said lots of offences relate
to a public place in fact lots of offences can only be committed in a public place so
when looking at the law on the set of facts it's absolutely crucial that the decision
is made by the court as to whether or not the location of this specific incident is
a public place so by way of example let's look at the landing area of a block of flats
in the case of Knox and Anderson in 1982 the court was asked to look at the upper landing
area of a block of flats to which the public had unhindered access the court decided that
this could amount to a public place however contrasting this in the case of Williams and
the Director of Public Prosecutions 10 years later the court address the same issue only
this time access to the upper landing area was controlled therefore the court held that
this was not a public place they might think that the locked door buzzer or some other
kind of restriction was the deciding factor between the two cases however that wasn't
quite it the deciding factor was that in the original case embers of the public were known
to use that landing weight is a bit of a shortcut through shopping centres and so it was because
the public use this but it was deemed to be a public place was a similar discussion in
Harriet and DPP of 2005 involving the resident of the hostel and the forecourt area between
the hostel and wrote in this case the High Court held that unimpeded access to a particular
place by itself did not turn it into a public place confused this is why it is never yes
no question to illegal query one final case involving the landing in a block of flats
was in 1980 the defendant was charged with having an offensive weapon in a public place
the landing was shared between him and another flat so it was held that it was not a public
place and he was not in contravention of that act the takeaway from all of these cases is
that it is a question of fact as to whether the general public have unimpeded access to
a particular place not just whether the public have access or whether they just have unimpeded
access but whether the general public do generally have unimpeded access make sense of course
so in conclusion it's unlikely that the communal area of a block of flats is going to be considered
a public place but as you can see it always depends on the facts moving onto the case
of Cawley and Frost of 1976 this involved a football stadium and the speedway track
and whether either of those amount to a public place it seems obvious enough that the actual
seating area of the football stadium is a public place because the public have access
upon payment but the public did not have general permission to be on the football pitch or
on the speedway track so the question for the court is whether either of those amounted
to a public place in the case at the end of the football match the defendant and others
climbed over the fence onto the speedway track and were hurling abuse at each other the defendant
was convicted for using threatening behaviour in a public place under the Public order act
but he appealed to the Crown Court on the basis that the speedway track was not a Public
Pl, Crown Court upheld his appeal but then the prosecutor appealed again to the Queen's
bench division this time the court held that the overall premises should be considered
as one and therefore the speedway track was a public place on the basis that where the
public have access to the premises the premises should be considered as a whole including
the Speedway track move on to a case of crown against Kane which involved a club essentially
this was a private club so ordinarily a private club would not be a public place because members
of the public not permitted to enter this private club but in the case there was evidence
that members of the public would come up to the club never having been there before didn't
know the bouncer didn't know the proprietor but they were allowed in any way this was
evidence that general members of the public were being given access to the club and thus
determined it as a public place exporters of 1963 involve the car park to a hotel of
course if you watch my other video you'll know that certain offences are committed if
you are unfit to drive through drink in a public place the question for the court was
whether this car park was a public place at the time in question the car park was in fact
closed the judge withdrew question from the jury as to whether or not this was a public
place once again this was appealed to the Court of criminal appeal as to whether or
not it was in fact a public place because after all it was close to the court held that
is always a matter of fact and degree and whilst the car park was closed at that particular
time there was no barrier and there was nothing to prevent general members of the public entering
the car park as they would otherwise ordinarily do and thus it is always a question of fact
and degree as to whether or not it's a public place as an aside to the car park in Elkins
and Cartlidge it was decided that an enclosure to which people are invited to go was also
a public place in another case a defendant was standing in his rear garden yelling abuse
at somebody else across the fence at court the justices were of the view that his shouting
caused a disturbance which could be heard well across the fence into a public place
know what was only bound over to keep the peace the divisional court said the justices
were wrong to say he was in breach of the Public order act because he was in his rear
garden which was not a public place that was your rear garden but how about your front
garden because you might think that members of the public access across your front garden
to knock your front door this is exactly the question before the court in 1978 which decided
that just because members of the public have access across your front garden to your front
door does not make your front garden a public place in 1976 the court had to address the
question as to whether a firearm kept behind the counter in a shop amounted to a public
place for the purposes of the firearms act 1968 on appeal the court held that the room
housing the shop was properly considered to be one unit thus the whole place was a public
place including the counter hopefully this is an interesting illustration of how case
law interacts with legislation and definitions and how every case turns on its own facts
it is never yes no question even if there is a definition written into law there is
always an interpretation of that law by the courts which can and very often is corrected
and appealed redefined and will continue to be clarified through subsequent case law and
sometimes the whole lot can be turned upside down for example if the case finds its way
all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court disagrees with decisions of the lower
courts in the meantime get to like this video is of an interesting forget to subscribe anoxia