The Public Order Act 1986 (c 64) is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. It creates a number of

public order offence In criminology, public-order crime is defined by Siegel (2004) as "crime which involves acts that interfere with the operations of society and the ability of people to function efficiently", i.e., it is behaviour that has been labelled criminal ...

s. They replace similar

common law offence Common law offences are crimes under English criminal law, the related criminal law of some Commonwealth countries, and under some U.S. State laws. They are offences under the common law, developed entirely by the law courts, having no specific ...

s and parts of the

Public Order Act 1936 The Public Order Act 1936 (1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6 c. 6) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed to control extremist political movements in the 1930s such as the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Largely the work of Home Office ci ...

. It implements recommendationsThe
Law Commission. Criminal Law: Offences relating to Public Order (Law Com 123). HMSO. 1983. of the

Law Commission A law commission, law reform commission, or law revision commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal chang ...

Background

Before the introduction of the Public Order Act 1986, policing public order was based on various relevant

s, and the

. Several factors influenced the introduction of the Public Order Act 1986. Significant public disorder, such as the Southall riot in 1979, the Brixton riot that extended to other cities in 1981, and the national miner's strike and associated disorder between 1984 and 1985 – in particular the

Battle of Orgreave The Battle of Orgreave was a violent confrontation on 18 June 1984 between pickets and officers of the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) and other police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, at a British Steel Corporation (BSC) coking plant a ...

in June 1984 – and the

Battle of the Beanfield The Battle of the Beanfield took place over several hours on 1 June 1985, when Wiltshire Police prevented The Peace Convoy, a convoy of several hundred New Age travellers, from setting up the 1985 Stonehenge Free Festival in Wiltshire, England. ...

in June 1985. Furthermore, the 1983

report, ''Criminal Law: Offences Relating to Public Order'' recommended updating the law. The Law Commission stated its desire to further to extend the codification of the law in England and Wales. It advocated the abolition of the common law offences of

affray In many legal jurisdictions related to English common law, affray is a public order offence consisting of the fighting of one or more persons in a public place to the terror (in french: à l'effroi) of ordinary people. Depending on their act ...

riot A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...

rout A rout is a panicked, disorderly and undisciplined retreat of troops from a battlefield, following a collapse in a given unit's command authority, unit cohesion and combat morale (''esprit de corps''). History Historically, lightly-equi ...

, and

unlawful assembly Unlawful assembly is a legal term to describe a group of people with the mutual intent of deliberate disturbance of the peace. If the group is about to start an act of disturbance, it is termed a rout; if the disturbance is commenced, it is then ter ...

. It argued the changes it recommended to public order legislation made it more practical to use, and make the law more comprehensible to the courts and juries. The long title of the Act details the intention of the Public Order Act 1986:

Offences

Part 1 – New offences

;Section 1 –

Riot A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...

;Section 2 –

Violent disorder Violent disorder is a statutory offence in England and Wales. It is created bsection 2(1)of the Public Order Act 1986. Sections 2(1) to (4) of that Act provide: :(1) Where 3 or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violen ...

;Section 3 –

Affray In many legal jurisdictions related to English common law, affray is a public order offence consisting of the fighting of one or more persons in a public place to the terror (in french: à l'effroi) of ordinary people. Depending on their act ...

;Section 4 – Fear or provocation of violence ;Section 4A –

Intentional harassment, alarm or distress Intentional harassment, alarm or distress is a statutory offence in England and Wales. It is an aggravated form of the offence of harassment, alarm or distress under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The offence The offence is created by se ...

: added by section 154 of the

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c.33) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights, clamping down on unlicensed r ...

;Section 5 –

Harassment, alarm or distress Harassment, alarm or distress is an element of a statutory offence in England and Wales, arising from an expression used in sections 4A and 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, which created the offence. The Act was amended in 1994. The offence The ...

Section 8 – Interpretation

This section defines the words "dwelling" and "violence".

Section 9 – Offences abolished

Section 9(1) abolished the

s of

and

. Section 9(2) abolished the offences under: *section 1 of the Tumultuous Petitioning Act 1661 *section 1 of the Shipping Offences Act 1793 *section 23 of the

Seditious Meetings Act 1817 The Seditious Meetings Act 1817 (57 Geo. III c. 19) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which made it illegal to hold a meeting of more than 50 people. Content The provisions of the Act were similar t ...

*section 5 of the

Part 2 – Processions and assemblies

;Section 11 – Advance notice of public processions: requires at least six clear days' written notice to be given to the police before most public processions, including details of the intended time and route, and giving the name and address of at least one person proposing to organise it; creates offences for the organisers of a procession if they do not give sufficient notice, or if the procession diverges from the notified time or route ;Section 12 – Imposing conditions on public processions: provides police the power to impose conditions on processions "to prevent serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community" ;Section 13 – Prohibiting public processions: a chief police officer has the power to ban public processions up to three months by applying to local authority for a banning order which needs subsequent confirmation from the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...

. ;Section 14 – Imposing conditions on public assemblies: provides police the power to impose conditions on assemblies "to prevent serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community". The conditions are limited to the specifying of: :* the number of people who may take part, :* the location of the assembly, and :* its maximum duration. ;Section 14A – Prohibiting trespassory assemblies: added by section 70 of the

, to control "

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

s" ;Section 16 – Public assembly: Originally meant an assembly of 20 or more persons in a public place which is wholly or partly open to the air. The

Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 The Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 (c.38) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which almost entirely applies only to England and Wales. The Act, championed by then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was passed in 2003. As well as str ...

amended the act to reduce the minimum numbers of people in an assembly to two, and removed the requirement to be in the open air.

Parts 3 and 3A – Racial and religious hatred

If the act is intended to stir up

racial hatred Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to notions and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group in varying degrees. There are multiple origins for ethnic hatred and the resulting ethnic conflic ...

Part 3 of the Act creates offences of * use of words or behaviour or display of written material (section 18), * publishing or distributing written material (section 19), * public performance of a play (section 20), * distributing, showing or playing a recording (section 21), * broadcasting (section 22). or * possession of racially inflammatory material (section 23) Acts intended to stir up

religious hatred Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, tr ...

are proscribed in POA Part 3A by the

Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (c. 1) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion. The Act was the Labour Governm ...

(RRHA) with the insertion of new sections 29A to 29N. The RRHA bill, which was introduced by Home Secretary

David Blunkett David Blunkett, Baron Blunkett, (born 6 June 1947) is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of the House of Lords since 2015, and previously served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough ...

, was amended several times in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

and ultimately the Blair government was forced to accept the substitute words. To stir up hatred on the grounds of

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

was to be proscribed by the

Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (c 4) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which makes significant changes in many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland and Nor ...

in POA Part 3A section 29AB. This legislation was introduced by David Hanson MP.

The Act and Article 11 of ECHR

The Act should be considered in connection with Article 11 of

European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...

, which grants people the rights of (peaceful) assembly and freedom of association with others.

Controversies

Misuse of section 14

The police have been accused by protestors and journalists of misusing the powers in section 14 on several occasions. During the 2009 G-20 London summit protests journalists were forced to leave the protests by police who threatened them with arrest.

The campaign to reform section 5

The "Reform Section 5" campaign was established in May 2012 to garner support for an alteration of section 5, and led to an increase in the threshold from "abusive or insulting" to strictly "abusive" for speech restricted by the act. It was reported that under section 5 alone, 51,285 people were convicted between 2001 and 2003, 8,489 of whom were between 10 and 17 years of age. The campaign was supported by a range of groups and famous individuals. These included the

National Secular Society The National Secular Society (NSS) is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of it. It was ...

, the

Christian Institute The Christian Institute (CI) is a pressure group operating in the United Kingdom, promoting a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint, founded on a belief in Biblical inerrancy. The CI is a registered charity. The group does not report numbers of sta ...

, the Bow Group, Big Brother Watch, the

Peter Tatchell Foundation Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is a British human rights campaigner, originally from Australia, best known for his work with LGBT social movements. Tatchell was selected as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey ...

and

The Freedom Association The Freedom Association (TFA) is a pressure group in the United Kingdom that describes itself as "a non-partisan, classically liberal campaign group, which has links to the Conservative Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP). TFA was founded in ...

. Actors

Rowan Atkinson Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, comedian and writer. He played the title roles on the sitcoms '' Blackadder'' (1983–1989) and ''Mr. Bean'' (1990–1995), and the film series ''Johnny English'' (2003–201 ...

and

Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...

also voiced their support. In 2013, a

amendment to a forthcoming Crime and Court Bill meant the removal of "insulting" from the definition of section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. A subsequent

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

briefing paper acknowledged the government's acceptance of the amendment and detailed the reasons for its decision.

Proposed amendments

In 2021 the government published the

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was introduced by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. It gives more power to the police, criminal justice, and sentencing legi ...

which would amend and strengthen the Public Order Act 1986 in certain ways, including widening the restrictions police can place on protests and demonstrations, impose conditions on one-person protests, and define what is meant by protests causing "serious disruption" to wider communities.Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Parliament.uk

References

External links

*
The Crown Prosecution Service Charging Standards for Public Order OffencesThe Public Order Act 1986
as amended, from the National Archives. {{UK legislation English legal terminology United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1986 English criminal law Hate crime Religious discrimination in the United Kingdom