Violence, the hypothetical bystander and police conditions
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.
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.
Crowd size alone does not establish guilt.
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.
[1] Sections 1–3 and 6The 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.
[2] Affray: reasonable firmness; LeesonFailure 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.
[2] Affray and alternative offencesPolice conditions and violent public-order offences have different legal elements.
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.
[1] Sections 11–16The 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.
[1] Annotations to sections 12, 14, 14ZA and 16; 2026 Act sections 164–167Keep the law separate from predictions and policy proposals.
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.
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