Criminal

Affray - youths carrying petrol bombs without threatening violence to any person - conduct not amounting to affrayI v Director of Public Prosecutions; M v Same; H v Same: HL (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Clyde, Lord Hutton, Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough and Lord Scott of Foscote): 8 March 2001Police officers, in response to an anonymous message, arrived outside a block of flats where a group of youths, some of whom carried petrol bombs, had assembled.

They dispersed immediately but the officers chased and arrested the defendants.

In interview one of them stated that the bombs were intended for use against a rival gang for whom they were waiting.

In convicting them of affray contrary to section 3(1) of the Public Order Act 1986, the stipendiary magistrate found that no other person was present and that there had been no show or threat of violence.

Their appeals by way of case stated were dismissed by the Divisional Court which held that the overt act of carrying the bombs constituted a threat of unlawful violence since it was directed to anyone in the vicinity, including the police officers.

The defendants appealed.Lady Kennedy of the Shaws QC and Andrew Smiler (instructed by Sweetman Burke & Sinker) for I.

Lady Kennedy of the Shaws QC and Sanjay Lal (instructed by McCauley-Slowe) for M.

Michel Massih QC and Mark Summers (instructed by Alexander Johnson) for H.

Bruce Houlder QC and Pamela Oon (instructed by Crown Prosecution Service) for the prosecution.Held, allowing the appeals, that the carrying of dangerous weapons such as petrol bombs by a group could constitute a threat of violence within section 3(1), and whether it did so was for decision by the tribunal of fact; but that to constitute the offence such a threat had to be directed to a person present at the scene and, since the magistrate had found that no one but the officers was present and that no threat had been offered to them, it had not been open to the Divisional Court to conclude that the defendants' conduct fell within section 3(1)