Not indicating agreement, but I guess its the distress part of the offence, you could argue they are causing distress to a lot of people. "Nowadays a person causing a public disturbance may be arrested for, and/or charged with, causing harassment, alarm or distress contrary to the Public Order Act 1986" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_the_peace
Normally I'd be against it, but there is this nasty new trend of people hijacking ANY public event or presentation for attention. 90% of what they do backfires anyway. Did anyone feel sympathy for that group of bikers that were ran down while blocking traffic? Maybe? Did their little stunt make them look like entitled twats instead? Yes.
I... err , didn't think I had to say that nobody should ever be run over by a motor vehicle for inconveniencing someone, but... here I am. Nobody should ever be run over by a motor vehicle for inconveniencing someone.
I was of the understanding that breach of the peace in the UK was a civil issue, and not a criminal one - Although I believe it is meant to be proved to the same standards as a criminal case, not that that applies here since they were photographed with the sign - which makes it fairly challenging to do anything with. The difference now is that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill has added 'impact' to the language. Which means the police could decide that one person being impacted in any way is grounds to arrest the person causing the impact. Which means this person, standing quietly with their bit of A4 paper, only has to 'impact' one person as far as the police assess the situation and they're being arrested and potentially looking at criminal charges. Technically the way it worked before meant the court could imprison someone for life, but there was no 'impact' wording in the law so my understanding is to get that far something far more serious than protesting would have to have occurred. Now it appears to be limited to a maximum of ten years in prison - But it's a much, much, lower bar to entry. In this instance, it's unlikely to go that far because the police bringing those charges and the court seeking sentencing would be burned to the ground (I imagine), but what happens when you have a BLM protest, racist plod, a racist system, and so on and so on. It might be highlighted by this incident, but it's a far further reaching situation that I think is right to make noise about. Patel's bill was so far reaching that there were huge numbers of rejections and still stuff like this made it through unchanged.
Similarly, I am surprised I had to say that it's not appropriate to protest at someone's funeral. Lots of breach of common sense going around these days, sadly.
Little bit of false equivalency there, no? I'd much rather someone protest my funeral than run me over. Although if they're protesting my funeral after running me over, I guess that'd be the worst...
I've told the OH just to dump me in the garden recycling when I go. I just don't get funerals. At all.
Thinking about it, there hasn't actually been a funeral yet. Protests have been at proclamations and en route. When it does happen on Monday I'm now in two minds. Instinctively I'd say nobody should protest at the funeral or any funeral but when you look at the good bad and the ugly that will be in attendance I can't say I'd be surprised if protests of all kinds occured.
For context I didn't really understand my own dad's funeral and we were close. Once I held his cold dead hand you know there's nothing there. Sure catching up with friends and family is good in the pub but that ain't the funeral. Like I say, I just don't get them but that may very well just be how my head works.
Common sense used to mean common because most everyone had it. If you don't want to risk getting run over don't deliberately block traffic and piss people off to the point they road rage and run you over, or block them in a way that makes them feel trapped, with you being aggressive and combative, at which point they might also run you over.
Common sense would dictate that you don't run someone over in any circumstances - if you're an angry enough driver to do that, try using the bus.
If someone is running someone over they are no longer in a state to exercise common sense, and I'm pretty certain most of them had been driving for years prior to running someone over. The two examples I gave pointed to it being caused by either anger or fear.
Indeed, If I am coming home minding my own business and the road is blocked by a bunch of angry people shouting and gesturing towards me etc, it would suggest to me they are clearly not of sound mind and I would consider my personal safety at risk, if I have to use my vehicle to escape the loonies who have lost all common sense so be it.
Holy sh!t this thread got dark. How did we get from "is protesting funerals bad?" to "I would run over protestors with my car if I felt uncomfortable"? Let me just count how many times I've felt threatened, or felt like my personal safety was at risk, while I've been casually driving somewhere, even the 5 minutes it takes me to get to the supermarket up the road. Give me a minute here... carry the one... subtract the three... wait, that's wrong, let me check that again... think I've got it now... Yep. Got it. The answer is... every. single. ****ing. time. Every single time I'm on the road there's a risk I won't come home alive. Partly because of my own actions... but mostly because of the actions of the ignorant and idiot cagers I have to share the road with. I have to plan so far ahead of you it's not even funny. I am constantly aware of my surroundings, planning many steps ahead, being extremely careful of my positioning both within the lane and relative to other vehicles, scanning the road surface for defects or fuel/oil spillages, watching pedestrians, watching junctions, watching the wheels of other vehicles to try and read their intentions because even when they do deign to indicate they don't even ****ing do it properly... and I still think that my riding isn't anywhere near as good as it should be. I'll never stop riding a motorcyle, you'll have to pry my Pan European from my cold dead fingers... but my life is at risk every single ****ing time I start that engine and pull out from my driveway. I can't even contemplate deliberately driving at someone with a car. Just take a moment - just a moment - to think about exactly what that means. Just take that thought to it's logical conclusion and think about what you're actually suggesting. Inexorably pushing several tons of steel, aluminium, glass, and composites at someone who is wearing nothing but regular street clothes. Troubled by nothing but your own inconvenience as you deliberately kill, maim, dismember, or disfigure someone's wife, husband, daughter, son, brother, sister, whatever, in some of the most horrific ways possible. Feeling nothing but the meagre resistance of your accelerator pedal as many many tons of force casually shatters limbs, rends flesh and skin, relentlessly grinds faces, skulls, brains, against tarmac. And you think that this is an acceptable response to people who protest? Are you ****ing serious? What the actual god damn ****ing shitting **** is ****ing wrong with you?
This has gone a bit odd. It's gone from is protesting at a funeral (like this will be any old funeral) to 'yeah sure, run over anybody if I feel threatened' (try using that in court, that'll be interesting to sit in on). I repeat, there has been no protest at a funeral. There has be no funeral, yet
Many have said the same the mere fact that this stance has been taken suggests that all forms of common sense and decency have been lost and they have devolved into mob rule, at this point the actions of a mob can't be considered the actions of a sane person. I would loose no sleep over it, same as when we had intruders in our house, it was a case of stop the threat by any means, they shouldn't be there in the first place. The Police did take a dim view when told its OK have a big knife, They came very quick in this case though unlike other times.
Defending yourself in your own home is very different from running somebody over on a public road no matter how scared you get. It's not a zombie movie out there. 'Decency' you say.
I'd had a few drinks when I posted last night, but I stand by every word and I'll say it again. The fact that this has to even be called out - repeatedly - absolutely blows my mind. You're not some road warrior in an apocalyptic wasteland, fending off roaming gangs of murderous bandits. You're just some guy driving their ****ing car down a ****ing street and you want to run people down and injure, main, or kill them because you feel intimidated? As I said last night:
