Brewer v Director of Public Prosecutions

The ordinary meaning of road is not extended merely because vehicles or pedestrians can pass through a car park. A car park may exceptionally contain a route qualifying as a road, but its physical character and function must support that conclusion. The principal function of a car park is ordinarily to enable vehicles to stand and wait. Driving across it, or using it incidentally as access to another area, is insufficient by itself. The court must assess the statutory language without giving familiar words an unnatural or artificially broad meaning.

The claimant appealed by way of case stated against convictions imposed by Peterborough Magistrates' Court. He had driven in a railway station car park after consuming alcohol and was convicted of driving with excess alcohol, contrary to section 5(1)(a) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, and driving while disqualified, contrary to section 103(1)(b) of that Act.

The magistrates found that the car park was used for parking, but also provided pedestrian access to a railway platform and vehicular access to a staff car park. The question was whether the relevant parts of the car park constituted a road for the purposes of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

1. Appeal allowed. The court answered the case-stated question in the negative and quashed the convictions.
2. Lord Justice Rose held that the only feature capable of distinguishing this car park from the car parks considered in Cutter v Eagle Star Insurance [1998] 4 All ER 417 was that railway staff drove through it to reach a staff car park. That feature was insufficient when considered with the physical and functional characteristics identified in Cutter v Eagle Star Insurance.
3. The ordinary meaning of road requires an identifiable route with physical limits that are defined or at least definable, leading from one point to another and functioning as a means of access. The distinction between a road and a car park turns materially on function. A road is intended to facilitate movement to a destination, whereas a car park is principally intended for vehicles to stand and wait.
4. The fact that pedestrians or vehicles can pass through a car park does not, without more, make the car park or the route across it a road. The statutory language cannot be stretched so far that an ordinary car park is given a substantially different legal character.
5. The magistrates' findings did not identify features capable in law of sustaining the conclusion that this car park was a road. Mr Justice David Clarke agreed.

• High Court (Administrative Court): On an appeal by way of case stated, the court allowed the appeal against the convictions recorded by Peterborough Magistrates' Court and quashed the convictions.