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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Although the judgments in Thomas v. Sawkins occupy less than three and a half pages in the Law Reports, it is a case of peculiar interest and importance. For the first time in English legal history it has been established that police officers are entitled to enter and remain on private premises if they have reasonable grounds for believing that if they are not present an offence or breach of the peace will be committed there. No, case was cited by counsel or in the judgments in which it had been specifically held that the police had this power, and no text-book contains a statement that it exists or has ever existed. Apparently the Home Office was ignorant that this right, obviously so useful to the police, could be exercised by them, for when the Fascist meeting was held at Olympia in London on June 7, 1934, the police, although they had reasonable grounds for believing that breaches of peace would occur, did not enter the hall, because, in spite of their request, the organizer of the meeting refused to admit them. When, a week later, the situation was discussed in Parliament, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Sir John Gilmour, said:
‘I want the House to understand that the law provides that unless the promoters of a meeting ask the police to be present in the actual meeting, they cannot go in unless they have reason to believe that an actual breach of the peace is being committed in the meeting.’
1 [1935] 2 K. B. 249.
2 Parliamentary Debates (1933–34), House of Commons, Vol. 290, col. 1968.
3 At p. 255.
4 At p. 256.
5 At p. 257.
6 At pp. 254, 255.
7 Cf. cases cited in Said v. Butt [1920] 3 K. B. 497; Salmond, Torts, 8th ed. p. 262. In the case of a licence coupled with an interest, as e.g. if a ticket of admission has been purchased, then other considerations arise: Hurst v. Picture Theatres, Ltd., [1915] 1 K. B. 1.
8 At p. 255.
9 (1882) 10 L. R. Ir. 294; 15 Cox C. C. 149.
10 [1914] 3 K. B. 229.
11 [1902] 1 K. B. 167.
12 At p. 256.
13 (1882) 10 L. R. Ir. 285.
14 Ibid. at p. 291.
15 34 Edw. 3, c. 1. For the history of justices of the peace, see Holdsworth, History of English Law, Vol. 1, pp. 286–98.
16 At p. 36.
17 By Fitzgerald J. in R. v. Queen's County Justices (1882) 10 L. R. Ir. p. 303; 15 Cox C. C. p. 155.
18 (1882) 10 L. R. Ir. 285; (1883) 14 L. R. Ir. 105.
19 17 Ir. C. L. R. 1.
20 At p. 257.
21 Supra, n. 18.
22 Law, C. at p. 112.
23 Law of the Constitution, 9th ed. pp. 273, 274.
24 R. v. Vincént, 9 C. & P. 109. Cf. Palles C.B. in O'Kelly v. Harvey (1882) 10 L. R. Ir. 285, 291: ‘The question then is, has a justice of the peace authority in law to disperse a meeting not shown to have been unlawful, because he reasonably believes the meeting is held with an unlawful intent? I have not myself been able to find any authority in support of the affirmative of this proposition: none such has been cited at the bar, and I do not believe that any such exists.’
25 17 Ir. C. L. R. 1.
26 At p. 276, n. 2.
27 Vol. 1, p. 356.
28 In Book IV, ch. 18, Blackstone deals with ‘The Means of Preventing Offences’. No reference is made to the powers of the police in this connexion.
29 1935, p. 208: ‘A constable may break open doors to take a felon if he be in the house, and entry be denied after demand, and notice given that he is a constable; or where a felony has been committed, and there be reasonable ground to suspect a particular person to be the offender, or where a felony has not been committed but is likely or about to be so, in the house, in order to prevent its occurrence, or where a constable hears an affray in a house he may break in to suppress it, and may, in pursuit of an affrayer, break in to arrest him’ (Chitty's Constables, 2nd ed. p. 59; 2 Hale 95; 1 Hawk. c. 63, 2 Hawk. c. 14).
30 Lord Hailsham's ed. § 124: ‘A private person or a constable may break open the outer door of the house of another in order to prevent a murder being committed in such house and to arrest the offender…. This may also be done if a felony will probably be committed unless a private person or constable interferes to prevent it.’ Mr. Justice Avory was part author of this chapter.
31 Ibid.
32 At p. 255.
33 Law of the Constitution, pp. 244, 245.
34 See a note in 49 Harvard L. R. (1936), 156, 157 in which the American law on this point is discussed.