Wood v Director of Public Prosecutions

A police officer who restrains a person without intending or purporting to arrest him commits an assault, even where an arrest would otherwise have been lawful. The distinction between detention for inquiry and arrest is substantive, not semantic. The officer must be purporting to exercise the power of arrest when physical restraint is imposed. If the officer asserts an arrest before the person uses force to escape, the legal position may differ.

The appellant was convicted by the North Hertfordshire Magistrates’ Court of assaulting two police officers in the execution of their duty and of threatening behaviour. The Crown Court at Luton dismissed his appeal on 17 July 2007.

The police had restrained him while attempting to identify him as a man suspected of criminal damage. The officer stated that he initially detained him to establish his identity and only later formed reasonable grounds to arrest him. The central issue was whether the restraint was lawful before any arrest was asserted.

1. Appeal allowed. The convictions were quashed.
2. On the facts stated by the Crown Court, Sergeant Cannon took hold of the appellant to detain him and establish whether he was the person known as Fraser. He did not intend or purport to arrest him at that stage. No officer asserted that the appellant was under arrest before the struggle.
3. The court applied Kenlin & Another v Gardiner & Another [1967] 2 Q.B. 510, particularly the reasoning at page 519. A police officer who restrains a person to secure an opportunity to ask questions, rather than as an integral step in an arrest, commits an assault. This remains so even if the officer might have possessed a power of arrest in the circumstances.
4. The Crown Court was therefore wrong to treat the distinction between detention and arrest as mere semantics. The appellant was entitled to resist the unlawful restraint by reasonable force, and the officers were not acting in the execution of their duty when the assaults occurred.
5. The result would have been different if the officer, or one of the constables, had asserted an arrest before the appellant struggled to obtain his release. The findings in the Case Stated did not support that conclusion.

1. High Court (Administrative Court) [2008] EWHC 1056 (Admin): appeal by way of Case Stated allowed and convictions quashed.
2. Crown Court at Luton: appeal against conviction dismissed on 17 July 2007.
3. North Hertfordshire Magistrates’ Court: appellant convicted on 27 June 2006.