{
  "id": "public-order",
  "category": "legal-study",
  "title": "Public order and protest",
  "subtitle": "Violence, the hypothetical bystander and police conditions",
  "summary": "The difference between riot, violent disorder, affray and the separate powers regulating protests. A source-led guide to the reasonable-firmness test and the amended statutory framework.",
  "checked": "2026-10-19",
  "jurisdiction": "England and Wales",
  "tags": [
    "uk",
    "public-order",
    "protest",
    "legal-process"
  ],
  "scope": "An examination of statutory tests, not a prediction of whether a particular protest or prosecution is lawful.",
  "status_note": "Reviewed 19 October 2026 against the amended statute and CPS charging guidance. Leeson is described through the CPS summary; its full judgment has not been independently inspected here.",
  "related": [
    {
      "id": "hansard-record",
      "title": "Hansard and the disputed parliamentary record"
    }
  ],
  "research_links": [
    {
      "id": "palestine-action",
      "title": "Palestine Action collection"
    },
    {
      "id": "terrorist-connection",
      "title": "Terrorist connection add-on"
    }
  ],
  "highlights": [
    {
      "label": "Public-order offences",
      "value": "Different elements",
      "detail": "Riot, violent disorder and affray are not interchangeable",
      "target": "three-offences"
    },
    {
      "label": "Reasonable firmness",
      "value": "Hypothetical bystander",
      "detail": "Actual presence is not required",
      "target": "leeson"
    },
    {
      "label": "Police conditions",
      "value": "Separate powers",
      "detail": "Processions, assemblies and one-person protests",
      "target": "conditions"
    }
  ],
  "sections": [
    {
      "id": "violence",
      "title": "The offences and the bystander",
      "intro": "Crowd size alone does not establish guilt.",
      "entries": [
        {
          "id": "three-offences",
          "title": "Riot, violent disorder and affray",
          "kind": "Statutory framework",
          "paragraphs": [
            {
              "text": "Riot requires 12 or more using or threatening unlawful violence for a common purpose; an individual must use violence to be guilty. Violent disorder requires three or more using or threatening unlawful violence; affray concerns violence or threats towards another. Each includes a reasonable-firmness test. Words alone cannot constitute affray. Section 6 supplies mental elements; mere presence does not establish guilt.",
              "sources": [
                {
                  "id": "poa",
                  "title": "Public Order Act 1986 — amended text and commencement annotations",
                  "publisher": "legislation.gov.uk",
                  "type": "Primary source",
                  "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/data.html",
                  "checked": "2026-10-19",
                  "locator": "Sections 1–3 and 6"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "id": "leeson",
          "title": "Leeson: violence alone is not enough",
          "kind": "CPS account of case law",
          "paragraphs": [
            {
              "text": "The statutory bystander is hypothetical: nobody of reasonable firmness need actually be present or likely to be present. The CPS summarises Leeson v DPP [2010] EWHC 994 (Admin) as requiring conduct capable of making a bystander fear for their own safety. Violence against a victim does not automatically satisfy that additional test. This is not a requirement to prove that a real bystander was frightened.",
              "sources": [
                {
                  "id": "cps",
                  "title": "Public Order Offences incorporating the Charging Standard",
                  "publisher": "Crown Prosecution Service",
                  "type": "Official prosecution guidance",
                  "url": "https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/public-order-offences-incorporating-charging-standard",
                  "checked": "2026-10-19",
                  "locator": "Affray: reasonable firmness; Leeson"
                }
              ]
            },
            {
              "text": "Failure to establish affray does not mean the conduct is lawful: an assault or another offence may still be relevant. Charging guidance distinguishes the available offences and their evidential requirements.",
              "sources": [
                {
                  "id": "cps",
                  "title": "Public Order Offences incorporating the Charging Standard",
                  "publisher": "Crown Prosecution Service",
                  "type": "Official prosecution guidance",
                  "url": "https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/public-order-offences-incorporating-charging-standard",
                  "checked": "2026-10-19",
                  "locator": "Affray and alternative offences"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "protest-powers",
      "title": "A different question: regulating a protest",
      "intro": "Police conditions and violent public-order offences have different legal elements.",
      "entries": [
        {
          "id": "conditions",
          "title": "Notice, conditions and definitions",
          "kind": "Amended legislation",
          "paragraphs": [
            {
              "text": "Section 11 concerns advance notice for qualifying public processions, with exceptions; it is not a universal notice requirement for static assemblies. Sections 12 and 14 regulate processions and assemblies; section 14ZA covers specified one-person protests. Conditions can address statutory grounds including serious disruption, not only violence. The England-and-Wales definition in section 16 starts at two people.",
              "sources": [
                {
                  "id": "poa",
                  "title": "Public Order Act 1986 — amended text and commencement annotations",
                  "publisher": "legislation.gov.uk",
                  "type": "Primary source",
                  "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/data.html",
                  "checked": "2026-10-19",
                  "locator": "Sections 11–16"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "id": "june-2026",
          "title": "29 June 2026: further amendments in force",
          "kind": "Commencement record",
          "paragraphs": [
            {
              "text": "The current statute records Crime and Policing Act 2026 amendments commencing on 29 June: places of worship, cumulative disruption, authorisation of officers imposing conditions, and railway-property coverage. The amendments have different commencement routes; they should not all be attributed to a single commencement regulation.",
              "sources": [
                {
                  "id": "poa",
                  "title": "Public Order Act 1986 — amended text and commencement annotations",
                  "publisher": "legislation.gov.uk",
                  "type": "Primary source",
                  "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/data.html",
                  "checked": "2026-10-19",
                  "locator": "Annotations to sections 12, 14, 14ZA and 16; 2026 Act sections 164–167"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "coverage",
      "title": "What this study does not establish",
      "intro": "Keep the law separate from predictions and policy proposals.",
      "entries": [
        {
          "id": "limits",
          "title": "No automatic clearance or collective guilt",
          "kind": "Coverage limitation",
          "paragraphs": [
            {
              "text": "This page does not determine the legality of a planned event or any individual defendant’s liability. Proposed changes to the reasonable-firmness wording are not enacted law. Additional cases and legislative-history claims from the supplied research remain outside this verified summary.",
              "sources": []
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "poa",
      "title": "Public Order Act 1986 — amended text and commencement annotations",
      "publisher": "legislation.gov.uk",
      "type": "Primary source",
      "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/data.html",
      "checked": "2026-10-19"
    },
    {
      "id": "cps",
      "title": "Public Order Offences incorporating the Charging Standard",
      "publisher": "Crown Prosecution Service",
      "type": "Official prosecution guidance",
      "url": "https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/public-order-offences-incorporating-charging-standard",
      "checked": "2026-10-19"
    }
  ],
  "url": "https://independenttribunal.org/research/public-order/"
}