Latest on police appeal against London’s Critical Mass

What if the police win their appeal? Could it be the end of this Crit­i­cal Mass, after 12 years of month­ly rides, or the begin­ning of a strate­gic rebel­lion?

At the start of last night’s ride Des Kay, who orig­i­nal­ly took the Met police to court, report­ed on the progress of their appeal. He said it is not look­ing good as the police are using a high pow­ered lawyer. The police want the ride to be treat­ed as a reg­u­lar pub­lic protest with a fixed route and organ­is­ers. Of course, cyclists are not going to stand for this and Des asked for dis­cus­sions on pos­si­ble strate­gies in the event of the appeal suc­ceed­ing. The result of the appeal could be soon or take sev­er­al weeks more.

What if the police win their appeal? Could it be the end of this Crit­i­cal Mass, after 12 years of month­ly rides, or the begin­ning of a strate­gic rebel­lion?

At the start of last night’s ride Des Kay, who orig­i­nal­ly took the Met police to court, report­ed on the progress of their appeal. He said it is not look­ing good as the police are using a high pow­ered lawyer. The police want the ride to be treat­ed as a reg­u­lar pub­lic protest with a fixed route and organ­is­ers. Of course, cyclists are not going to stand for this and Des asked for dis­cus­sions on pos­si­ble strate­gies in the event of the appeal suc­ceed­ing. The result of the appeal could be soon or take sev­er­al weeks more.

Police are still warn­ing rid­ers with sound sys­tems not to play them with­in the SOCPA zone and are ask­ing for their names and address­es but take no action when this request is refused. They also video the sound sys­tem peo­ple.

Pre­vi­ous court deci­sion http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/2006/sedley.html

Web­site http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/

Legal com­ment below:

Its not unlaw­ful to go on a bike ride!

If a group of peo­ple decide to go for a bike ride for leisure pur­pos­es only, it is not unlaw­ful.

The bike ride can only be sub­ject to require­ments of writ­ten notice and pos­si­ble restric­tions if it falls with­in Sec­tion 11 of Part II of the Pub­lic Order Act 1986, which deals with pro­ces­sions and assem­blies. It states:

“11. Advance notice of pub­lic pro­ces­sions

(1) Writ­ten notice shall be giv­en in accor­dance with this sec­tion of any pro­pos­al to hold a
pub­lic pro­ces­sion intend­ed:

(a) to demon­strate sup­port for or oppo­si­tion to the views or actions of any per­son or body
of per­sons,

(b) to pub­li­cise a cause or cam­paign, or

© to mark or com­mem­o­rate an event,

unless it is not rea­son­ably prac­ti­ca­ble to give any advance notice of the pro­ces­sion.”

The police would have to show that there is a ‘col­lec­tive inten­tion’ to the bike ride which brings it with­in the cat­e­gories (a), (b) and © of Sec­tion 11 (1).

A reg­u­lar bike ride for ‘leisure pur­pos­es’ only, tak­ing a vari­able route, would not fall with­in those cat­e­gories. If an iso­lat­ed indi­vid­ual or num­ber of indi­vid­u­als decid­ed spon­ta­neous­ly and sep­a­rate­ly to dec­o­rate their bike or bod­ies to make any spe­cif­ic point falling with­in the above cat­e­gories, so long as it was not the ‘col­lec­tive inten­tion’ of the group as a whole to do so, the ride would not be brought with­in the require­ments of Sec­tion 11 (1).

So the ‘South Bank Cycling Club’ or who­ev­er, just needs to make it clear in any pub­lic­i­ty or in any com­mu­ni­ca­tion that the inten­tion of the ride is for leisure pur­pos­es and not for demon­stra­tion, pub­lic­i­ty or com­mem­o­ra­tive pur­pos­es.