Can Policemen Order You To Go Home?

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 298, 16 December 1937, Page 5

Can Policemen Order You To Go Home?

MIDNIGHT ENCOUNTER THAT ENDED WITH AN ACQUITTAL. LONDON. Have policemen the right to order a man, who is not committing any offence, to go home? This was the problem set at Hamilton by Mr. George McLaughlin, defending Thomas Allan, a one-legged lamp man, of Cambuslang, who was acquitted on a charge of committing a breach of the peace. Police-Constable McCrae said he met two other police officers about midnight on September 24. They were going to hide and watch for coal stealers. He saw Allan standing on the pavement in Hamilton road and told him to go home. Allan refused and used bad language. He was arrested. The officer agreed that he had met Allan earlier that day when Allan had used bad language and refused to move from a window-sill where he was sitting. Mr. McLaughlin: You knew Allan always waited at night for the morning

newspapers ? —Y es. I suggest you went deliberately there to get revenge for what happened earlier in that day?—That is not true. Do you tell me that if a citizen is standing in the street committing no offence and acting peaceably, you have the right to order him into his home?— Yes, with a man of Allan's character. Police-Constable John Watt described Allan as “a perfect pest." Mr. McLaughlin: By whose authority can you order a man into his home! — Surely we are allowed some discretion. Yes, but not to order a man into his home for nothing?—l would order you into your home if necessary. And you would get your answer.Then you would go down the road for a breach of thq peace. “You will hear more of that answer to me," stated Mr. McLaughlin.