REMOVING 'OFFENDING' WORDS

Printed below is a very short extract from the skeleton arguments of my barrister in the case of the Transco metric signs removed from the roadside in Kent, due to be heard at Maidstone Crown Court on 30 October through 1 November:

"Mr Bennett can argue that since the company were obliged to change their signs and indeed did so by placing stickers over the 'mtrs' legend, he acted in a way which was within the law, by striking out an offending part of the signs which could mislead motorists/road users expecting to see distances in miles or yards.

By analogy, if a piece of racially offensive graffiti appeared on a wall and was destined to be removed by the authorities due to its inflammatory nature, would a person seriously expect to be prosecuted if he quickly daubs paint over the words and thus ends the suffering of those affected by the words?

The wall would be in no worse state in terms of value or usefulness than before the over-painting and the effect of so doing has provided a lawful excuse for the perpetrator".


Tony Bennett

But there is a more powerful defence - covering an illegality is legal. Section 131 (2) Highways Act 1980.

Ah, metric signs are comparable to racially offensive graffiti. Right....

Ralf

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By analogy, if a piece of racially offensive graffiti appeared on a wall and was destined to be removed by the authorities due to its inflammatory nature, would a person seriously expect to be prosecuted if he quickly daubs paint over the words and thus ends the suffering of those affected by the words?
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This is a very weak analogy - racially abusive graffiti is put up with the express purpose of abuse towards a particular sector of the population. Road signs are put up with the purpose of informign people of possible dangers. TRANSCO migth have committed a technical breach of the law, but it 99.9% of the population would hardly have found that technical breach abusive.

...but according to this year's survey by ICM, only 4% of the population normally think in metric distances and 86% prefer road and pedestrian signs to stay in miles and yards...


Tony Bennett

To some, public opinion iz not important in zis nooo oorrop zat ve are creating.

You claim that Section 131 (2) Highways Act 1980, is a basis for defence in the Bennett case.

I put it to you that this is complete bunkum and you know it!

Tony was convicted of theft and criminal damage.

The sub-section of the 1980 Highways act to which you refer does not allow anyone to steal private property or damage it. It only says that if a sign is not lawfully placed no one can be convicted under that same act for obliterating or pulling it down.

Tony was not charged under that act. The argument that you put forward (on the BWMA web site) that such an act was blocked from the court is also nonsense. If as you claim Tony was not guilty of an offense under the act then why should the prosecution or the judge deem it relevant?

It is not posters on this site who are referring to the Section 131(2) Highways Act defence but learned Counsel. Christopher Johnson is now the second Counsel to endorse the 'abuse of process' argument in relation to the illegal signs removed from the roadside in Kent.

I hesitate to reproduce still more of Christopher Johnson's three-page 'skeleton argument' on the relevance of Section 131(2) but will mention just this further extract:

"The Police and the CPS have shown a deliberate avoidance of a tricky legal problem by opting to charge theft and criminal damage...It is submitted that the appellant is denied the opportunity of running the defence Parliament intended he should have for just such a set of circumstances as this. Therein lies abuse by this prosecution".


Tony Bennett

Hello Pip,

QUOTE: "The sub-section of the 1980 Highways act to which you refer does not allow anyone to steal private property or damage it".

It is true that the Act does not allow people to steal; it only allows people to "pull down". Therefore, Tony must expain in his Appeal why he moved the signs away from their posts to another location. BWMA does not accept Judge Kelly's explanation that Tony's purpose was to steal or "permanently deprive".

Regarding "damage", there are two questions, whether:

i) "obliterating" a sign (the word used in the 1980 Act) emcompasses the act of damage if it can be shown that damage was necessary to the act of obliteration.

ii) It must also be asked whether painting over a sign was "damage" anyway, given that one of the definitions of damage is to "reduce the article's value" (or words to that effect). It will be argued by Tony that the paint did not reduce the value of the signs because the signs were unauthorised and not fulfilling their purpose as "traffic signs".

QUOTE: If...Tony was not guilty of an offense under the act then why should the prosecution or the judge deem it relevant?

The police/CPS/prosecution used the Theft and Criminal Damage Acts. We believe the Judge should have stopped the prosecution under these acts and order a prosecution under the more recent 1980 Act. We cannot explain why Judge Kelly did not do this - but once he had started down that route, perhaps he felt he could not turn back. This would account for the element of scorn in his written judgement.

The sad thing is that, in the highly likely case that Tony gets rejected in Brussels as well, he will reuse that defeat for his political campaign, rambling even louder about that "an Englishman got dictated what and what not to do on his home soil by a foreign government".

Hello to you too BWMA. Nice to talk again.

Quote:
"The police/CPS/prosecution used the Theft and Criminal Damage Acts. We believe the Judge should have stopped the prosecution under these acts and order a prosecution under the more recent 1980 Act. We cannot explain why Judge Kelly did not do this - but once he had started down that route, perhaps he felt he could not turn back. This would account for the element of scorn in his written judgement."

With all due respects I am astounded at this. The 1980 act does not empower people to go around damaging or stealing property. It is only concerned (in this context) with the protection of traffic signs from being "pulled down or obliterated - without reasonable excuse". It doesn't obligate anyone, or offer protection from any other act of parliament for people to damage or steal them in the event that they are not compliant with the TSRGD.

Suppose someone painted over a fully compliant sign showing distances in yards. Under the 1980 act that person would be liable to prosection for "obliterating or pulling down" a traffic sign. It would be reasonable under those circumstances for the prosecution or the judge to invoke the 1980 act. But that same person might also face charges of criminal damage under the relevent act. One does not cancel out the other.

In the Bennett case the 1980 act could not be brought to bear because the signs did not strictly comply with the regs. But it still left the question as to whether an act of theft or criminal damage had been perpetrated. These points needed to be looked at separately. Judge Kelly's conclusion was that they had been and his reasoning was quite clear.

We'll have to wait and see what the appeal court makes of those arguments, but frankly I'll be quite surprised if Tony's conviction is overturned on those or similar grounds.

I would actually be very durprised if Tony Bennett's conviction does not get overturned at the Crown Court. The 1994 TSRGD state that expresing metric distances is unlawful and the 1980 Highways Act states that someone being charged with pulling down or obliterating (no specification on the permanence of the obliteration or where to take the sign once pulled down) a sign can use it as a defence if the sign is unlawful. If your argument against this is reduced to comparing it with pulling down or obliterating a sign expressed solely in yards/miles then I don't know why you're wasting your electricity posting your messages on this forum. Of COURSE it would not to take down or obliterate a sign that complies with the law, but Section 131(2) of the 1980 Highways Act refers to unlawful signs.

One more go and I'll not waste anymore electricity.

You seem to be missing my point. Pulling down or obliterating a sign not lawfully placed is only a defence against charges brought under the 1980 highways act.

This does not mean that charges of theft or damaged cannot be brought under other acts of parliament not related the the Highways act.

Tony's argument is that the Theft and Criminal Damage Acts (1965 and 1971?) cannot apply since they have been "impliedly repealed" by the 1980 Act in so far as they apply to unauthorised traffic signs.

I've just put another shilling in the meter so I'm alright for a bit longer.

Understood BWMA. I am well aware of Tony's defense argument. I think he is plain wrong. But we will see.

I think the meter is about to go, night night folks...

"I think the meter is about to go, night night folks..."

It's spelled "metre" in the UK, Pip.

:)

Pip wrote
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I think the meter is about to go, night night folks...
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Steveh wrote
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It's spelled "metre" in the UK, Pip.
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The spelling can be either - if it displays a measurement it is spelt "meter", if it *is* a measurement it is spelt "metre".

I wonder if you *honestly* didn't see the joke?

Steveh, your humour is gettin' worse and worse.

At least someone spotted it!

I spotted it.