Rowland v Mitchell

For an offence under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour must be within the sight or hearing of a person likely to suffer harassment, alarm or distress. Swearing at a police officer is not, by itself, sufficient. Where the relevant exchange occurs within secure premises, persons outside those premises may not be likely to suffer harassment or alarm from the words spoken inside, although distress remains possible in an appropriate case.

The claim arose from an exchange at the Downing Street gates on 19 September 2012. Toby Rowland, a police constable, alleged that Andrew Mitchell directed abusive and insulting words at him after being required to leave by the pedestrian gate rather than the vehicle gates. Mitchell denied using the alleged words, including the term “plebs”. The court considered CCTV evidence, timing evidence, contemporaneous notes, subsequent reports and the credibility of the witnesses. The central issues included what was said and whether the police officer’s threatened arrest had a proper legal basis.

1. The court found, on the balance of probabilities, that Mr Mitchell used words substantially equivalent to those alleged by PC Rowland, including the word “pleb”. The court accepted that Mr Mitchell had lost his temper and that this affected the reliability of his recollection.

2. The CCTV timings and speech evidence did not support every detail of PC Rowland’s account of his own response. The court concluded that PC Rowland had warned Mr Mitchell not to swear and threatened arrest, but probably used fewer words than those recorded in his later account.

3. The court rejected the suggestion that PC Rowland and the other officers had fabricated the core account. Their immediate discussions, contemporaneous notes, reports and subsequent evidence provided substantial corroboration. Inconsistencies concerning precise location and timing were treated as ordinary inconsistencies arising from repeated accounts of a short and unexpected incident.

4. The court held that there was no proper basis for a warning of arrest under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The statutory conditions required threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour within the sight or hearing of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress. Swearing at a police officer was not sufficient by itself. Given the secure Downing Street gates, a person outside could not be caused harassment or alarm by words spoken inside, although distress to a particularly sensitive listener remained possible.

5. The supplied judgment text ends after these findings and does not state the formal judgment or final order in the claim.