> Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. It's not an offense to be rude and you certainly shouldn't have to "Wind your neck in" in fear of a public servant.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence to use "threatening or abusive words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour" in a public place. Interpretation of the precise meaning of those words is a matter for the courts; this has historically been interpreted quite liberally, but Harvey v DPP established the clear distinction between words that are potentially abusive and words that actually caused harassment, alarm or distress.
Broadly speaking, you're OK to swear in front of a police officer, but you'll get nicked if you swear at a police officer, which strikes me as a reasonable compromise between liberty and civility.
“The guy told them to p off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,”*
This is a common use of laws in the United Kingdom. They put lots of laws on the books around trivial things that they almost never enforce on their own, but then which officers arbitrarily use in "convenient" situations like this. The average person swearing in the street will not be accosted, someone arguing with a cop who wants to make a point will.
My S5POA reference was to the fact that saying "fuck off" within earshot of a policeman, not even at them directly, is an arrestable offence. And such arrests happen quite often.
There's section 5 of the public order act which is about saying / doing things "likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress" to the public, which has been interpreted as including police officers. I don't know anything about having to say things twice or it being classed as assault.
There was a 2011 ruling in England where the judge said that officers were so regularly on the receiving end of the "rather commonplace" expletive that it was unlikely to cause them "harassment, alarm or distress".
The Met continues to arrest people for swearing at police as they rejected the ruling. I know that Police Scotland continue to arrest people for swearing at police but I'm not sure how/if it has affected forces in England and Wales. At the time it was reported that the precedent could likely quash any future charges in similar circumstances.
You'll find in the UK that it's quite common practice to use the vagueness in the law to pin a different charge on somebody. Being rude to a police officer isn't a chargeable offense, yet it'll be treated as such. The police have no requirement or training available to actually understand the nuances of the law, nor are they updated when the law changes. The British police is mostly under-trained and under-funded, especially as you break out of the London bubble.
One of the major issues with UK law is it's vagueness and openness to interpretation, which is all of course by design. You don't tend to notice erosion until the ground beneath you collapses.
> A person must (a) use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) display any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting; and
> The words or behaviour, or writing, sign of other visible representation must be within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.
This is all intepreted by the courts and they do push back against police misuse of the act.
I think, but I'm not sure, that the offence isn't in the word that is used, but in how the word is used. I think if he'd said "I'm not fucking doing that" he'd have been ok, but if he says "fuck off, I'm not doing that" he isn't ok. But I'm not sure about this.
It is a bit worrying that police so frequently use public order offences and I wish they'd reduce the use of them.
I was surprised by this, like other sibling commenters. I was under the impression that common assault is only enacted when the victim is threateningly contacted or injured, or has reasonable fear of that being about to happen. Maybe threatening language might play a part in that.
Having a quick Google, the articles I've come across seem to indicate that swearing at police has in the past been interpreted as illegal, but nothing has mentioned it being classed as assault.
True, but if you are being a douchebag in such a way that it interferes with a police officer's conduct of their duty, then that effect is not protected. So prosecuting this person for what they said would be wrong. Prosecuting for interfering in a Police officer's discharge of their duty would be though.
Incidentally this is my take on the 'shouting Fire in a cinema' issue. Shouting whatever you like shouldn't be a crime, just as firing a gun isn't in itself a crime. Context matters. Deliberately causing a panic is a crime, as is killing a person with a bullet fired from your gun. Intentions matter and even unintentional but negligently caused effects matter.
Judges tend to push back a bit if people are being arrested for merely swearing, especially if it's only at police officers.
Judges will say if you're in the job as a police officer that you need to be a bit robust about the language you hear.
They also say that we're not a nation of nuns and schoolgirls and so the everyday "man in the street" won't be aghast at the occasional swear word.
The public order act is problematic, and it does need to be reformed, but it's not as catastrophic as it appears.
We've just had a popular musician leading a chant of "Fuck off Boris" [Johnson], and that was broadcast on BBC tv. There are no arrests.
The other thing that causes real confusion on HN is that police and crown prosecution service have discretion about when to arrest and when to prosecute and they're too busy dealing with criminals to go around arresting people who've only sworn.
I wouldn't annoy a police officer before the Pan-Opticon was installed anyway.
When a Cop in the 90s arrests a guy because the cop got annoyed at something the 'suspect' said, you had the option to blame it on the cop's thin-skinned personality. Now annoyed cops can use the law directly.
The UK police implicitly allowing retributive online abuse is subtly humorous.
> I've been told by Germans, none of whom were law enforcement or lawyers that calling someone an asshole or sticking up your middle finger is a finable offense.
I can confirm this for offending a police officer or similar. But I haven't heard of a case where someone got fined for offending a `normal' private person. (I do not know whether the law covers this as well.)
Yes it is: From the Public Order Act 1986 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64)
A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he—
(a)uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b)displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,
thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
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