l eg a l b r i e f i n g 1 0/0 1/1 7
The good news is that dropping a banner from a bridge is not in
itself illegal. But there are quite a few circumstances where the
process of doing a banner drop from a bridge could potentially put
you on the wrong side of the law if you’re not careful.
Moreover, every bridge is different - road, rail, river, public,
privately owned etc - and any given bridge is likely to be
subject to its own bye-laws. As such it’s not practical to provide
comprehensive advice on specific places / roads / rivers / areas,
but bye-laws are at the very bottom of the food chain of criminal
offences so you shouldn’t worry too much. It’s still important to
research your bridge in advance of the action to check these
though.
However, we can take a helpful look at the generic national
legislation that could come into play during a bridge banner drop,
and this briefing also explores some of the specific rules that apply
around bridges over the Thames.
Please note that while informal advice from criminal lawyers has
informed the content, this briefing has been prepared by a fellow
activist, not a lawyer, and must not be taken as formal legal advice!
In general
Bear in mind that police officers tend to be instinctively suspicious
of any kind of public protest and will seek to shut it down despite
not really knowing if any offence has been committed, so a lot
will depend on how you interact with any police you encounter.
Always remember that it is the police’s job to facilitate peaceful,
lawful protest; the police are prone to forget this, and by their
own actions they can turn a lawful protest into an unlawful one.
Generally speaking, it is always best to do what police ask you to
do if you want to avoid arrest; but if you can be confident that
no crimes are being committed then it is perfectly legitimate to
decline a police request (although this can itself constitute a minor
offence in some situations - see aggravated trespass, below). What
you must avoid however is…
Obstruction of the police (s89 Police Act 1996)
It is an offence to obstruct a police officer in the execution of their
duty, maximum sentence of a fine or prison.
Be sensible - physical confrontations with police can never end
well. Keep out of their way. Similarly,
The Public Order Act 1986
Threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly
conduct likely to cause someone harassment, alarm, or distress are
all minor offences subject to fines.
Be nice! And keep calm. Even if police are being unreasonable,
getting angry will only make things worse. Also, filming any
exchange that is becoming heated is sensible as police have been
known to concoct these kind of charges against protestors with
false versions of events.
It is important to note here that the words on your banner could
themselves constitute an offence under the Act, if they could be
construed as offensive: so a “fuck trump” banner or similar would
not be advisable.
S14a - trespassory assemblies
The police have powers to ban or impose conditions on gatherings
of 20 or more people on private land or property where the public
have limited access, and breaching these could in theory lead to
up to 3 months in prison.
Road Traffic Act 1988
S22A Causing danger to road-users
1. A person is found guilty of an offence if he intentionally and
without lawful authority or reasonable cause:
a. Causes anything to be on or over a road, or
b. Interferes with a motor vehicle, trailer or cycle, or
c. Interferes (directly or indirectly) with traffic equipment.
in such circumstances that it would be obvious to a reasonable
person that to do so would be dangerous.
This one applies in particular to any bridge over a road, and ‘traffic
equipment’ means anything from lights to signs to fences and
barriers. This offence is very rarely used and the penalties would
be likely to be light. It should also be fairly straightforward to
avoid through careful planning and execution of your banner drop:
clearly the important thing is not to be dangerous!
If you are targeting eg a footbridge over a dual carriageway, it
might be sensible to actually write a risk assessment (what things
could go wrong, how likely are they, what would happen they did
go wrong, and what you can do to prevent this or ‘mitigate’ the
risks). You can find a template for this here. Also make sure that all
participants have been properly briefed before the action, and if
you can, film this briefing taking place.
These are helpful exercises to think through the risks anyway, and
if the police did get involved, would provide evidence to them (and
to the court if it came to that) that what you did was not reckless
and did not endanger anyone. Dropping a banner over an A road
could indeed endanger motorists passing below if done carelessly
so this is just smart action planning as well as legal contingency
planning.
If you plan to leave your banner in place when you go, it is very
important to make sure it is properly secured before you leave.
Criminal damage
It is an imprisonable offence to damage someone else’s property
without lawful excuse.
This one is most likely to apply on a privately owned bridge, but
could be used on public land too. It should be easy to avoid by
taking care not to damage anything!
Aggravated trespass (s68 Criminal Justice and Public Order
Act 1994)
Trespassing on land with the intention of disrupting someone else’s
lawful activity can get you up to 3 months in prison.
This is the police’s go-to charge for non-violent direct actions, but
only applies a) on private land and b) if you obstruct someone
from going about their lawful business. As nobody should be
inconvenienced by a banner drop it’s unlikely to apply here.
However, police officers could insist that they believe you plan
to commit Aggravated Trespass and instruct you to leave the
property - and failure to follow this direction is itself a minor
offence under s69 of the Act.
Obstruction of the highway (s137, Highways Act 1980)
It is an offence to obstruct without lawful excuse free passage
along the highway, including the road and pavement.
Don’t block the flow of traffic - including pedestrians - and this
won’t apply. It’s a minor offence and not imprisonable.
Display of unauthorised advertisements (s 224 Town and Country
Planning Act 1990)
It is an offence to display an unauthorised advertisement about
one’s ‘concerns’, punishable by a fine.
Most advertisement related legislation would not apply to bridges
not walls banners, but this one technically could, though it is open
to interpretation. It’s very rare for charges of this kind to be brought.
Joint enterprise and conspiracy
If an offence is deemed to have been committed by any
participant in a protest, then it is possible for all participants
to be charged with the offence through association, under the
joint enterprise and conspiracy legal provisions. These rules are
generally used to persecute young black men associated in some
way with serious violent crime, and we should not expect them to
come into play here - but it is in theory a possibility at least.
Public nuisance
Is a common law offence (not one determined by an Act of
Parliament) defined as an unlawful act or omission which
endangers or interferes with the lives, comfort, property or
common rights of the public.
Public nuisance is very widely applicable, very open to
interpretation and carries the risk of a hefty prison sentence. There
is no plausible case that a simple banner could itself constitute
a public nuisance. However, police could in theory use a banner
hung above a busy road as pretext to close the road to traffic by
deeming it dangerous to said traffic. This could inconvenience
hundreds or even thousands of people, thereby giving rise to an
offence of public nuisance. There’s no cast iron way to avoid such a
charge being brought, but a) making sure your banner is evidently
safely installed and not a danger to traffic, and b) taking it down
(safely) if instructed to by a police officer should do the trick.
As this whistlestop tour of relevant criminal legislation makes
clear, carefully dropping banners from bridges is unlikely to mean
committing any crimes - unless the police get involved, at which
point we might suddenly find ourselves being charged with a wide
range of offences. It’s a funny old world.
The key takeaway is to make sure that you have assigned someone
to liaise with police officers if they do arrive on the scene; that
that person has familiarised themselves with the contents of this
briefing in advance; and that they keep all interactions with the
police civil and good natured until the protest is over.
Thames bridges
Many of the bridges across the Thames are private property and
owned by the Bridge House Estates; and all of them fall within
the jurisdiction of the Port of London Authority and its bye-laws,
which can be found here.
The only item of relevance I have identified is this:
50. DANGERS AND OBSTRUCTIONS TO NAVIGATION
A person must not place or leave unsecured on the shore anything
that is likely to become a danger or obstruction to navigation.
I’d suggest that similar advice to the above re the Road Traffic Act
should be followed here to avoid an offence being committed.
The Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
Some good news here. The clauses of this legislation which
previously banned unauthorised protest within 1m of Parliament
were repealed in 2011, and now only apply in a more limited way to
Parliament Square and its environs. Even Westminster Bridge is no
longer subject to SOCPA.
Rail bridges
We haven’t sought specific advice on these as it is always
dangerous and definitely illegal to be ‘trackside’ without express
authorisation (and indeed special training). Don’t do it! If we’re
talking about bridges over railways, these are poor locations for
banner drops anyway as the only person who will see the banner is
the train driver!
Precarious immigration status?
On the back of a criminal conviction, the Home Office can order
deportation. Can also make bail more difficult and conditions
more stringent. So if your action has participants with precarious
immigration status, it’s advisable to keep them well out of harm’s
way - not dropping the actual banner, and not interacting with
police if at all possible.
Climbing
Climbing is not technically likely to be any more illegal than
simply dropping a banner - just more likely to trigger a charge of
obstructing navigation or endangering road traffic if not carried
out safely and by suitably trained climbers. It’s also more likely to
attract attention from the police, and if climbers refuse a direction
to get down, could lead to an offence if on private property.
R i s k a s s e s s m e n t t e m p l at e
Risk factor
Hazard
Likelihood
Control measures
E.g. The banner is
dropped into moving
traffic
E.g A traffic accident
is caused, leading
to injury - or fatality
- and damage to
vehicles
E.g Medium
E.g Tie the banner on
before dropping over
the bridge barrier