Research can be boring.
Not always of course. Most of the
time there is nothing better than wading through stacks of documents looking
for the needle that provokes joy on discovery.
However researching legislation is particularly challenging and can be
both tedious and difficult. However
there is no way around it. Either we
just tell stories about our history and in doing so reinforce the many myths of
police history or we slog away.
I paint this rather glum picture because I have spent the
last few weeks (in between more exciting activities and trying to earn a
living) wading through the legislation that touches the jurisdiction of the
British Transport Police. In particular
I have been trying to find the point when jurisdiction was expanded to cover
places beyond the premises of the ‘Boards’
(ie railways, docks canals etc) in matter ‘affecting the Board’. Why is this important? Well it isn’t, this is niche history after
all. Why am I interested? Because quite a lot of nonsense is spoken
about the jurisdiction of BTP both current and historic and the only way to keep
on the straight and narrow is to go back to the original paperwork (i).
If I were looking at any of the geographic forces of England
and Wales this would have been a simple task.
The Police Act 1964 (and its replacement in 1996) makes things very
clear (ii). But the jurisdiction of BTP
was, until the mess that is the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003,
contained in various Local/Private Acts of Parliament. These Acts tend not to appear on the national
databases except where they intersect with Public General Acts. This means that
the only way to read this legislation is to wade through each Act. The British Transport Police was brought
together (not as a police ‘force’ but as a body of constables) by one of these
Acts, viz, the British Transport Commission Act 1949. Most
retired BTP officers and some serving officers were attested or sworn as constables
under s53 of the Act (note that the Act gave an option).
The jurisdiction granted under the 1949 Act was a virtual
cut and paste of the descriptions of the jurisdiction given to the constables
of the formerly independent railway companies.
Basically the premises operated by the British Transport Commission
(BTC) (which included docks, hotels etc as well as railways) and included a
power of ‘follow and arrest’ together with powers ‘in the vicinity’ but only in
matters relating to offences on the property of the Commission. This was soon seen as unsatisfactory as it
made investigating offences rather difficult.
This problem had existed before the creation of the BTC and officers
used the same work around as they had before 1949. They ignored the restriction and the courts
turned a blind eye to the technical shortcomings of the jurisdiction
provisions. There were, it seems, very
few, if any, attempts at civil claims against the BTC on the basis of jurisdiction
(see elsewhere for discussions on later cases. Extensive use was made of powers
available to citizens and sometimes BTP officers ‘assisted’ officers from local
forces. I recall a colleague at Tadworth
(The BTP Force Training Centre of happy memory) talking about the ex turpi
causa principle and the 18th century case of Holman and Johnson
but such things are beyond my understanding. (iii).
W.O Gay, one time chief constable and long term historian of
the force made mention of the legal gap several times in his various articles
and pieces in the BTP Journal and Police Review. He was also concerned by assaults on officers
when dealing with cases at court.
Partial relief eventually came after Gay had retired. S25 of
the British Railway Act 1978 reframed the jurisdiction clause of the 1949 Act
to allow BTP constables powers outside of the premises and vicinity of the
Boards in matters ‘concerned with or affecting the Boards’. The reconstitution of the force in 2003
removed the ‘vicinity’ powers but carried forward the ‘elsewhere’ provision in
an amended form, viz: “ throughout Great Britain for a purpose connected to a
railway or to anything occurring on or in relation to a railway.” (s31 (g).
To pin down the date of the change required me to look at every
annual British Transport Commission/British Railways Act from 1950 to 1980. Such Acts mainly deal with matters relating
to the construction or decommissioning of railways and docks. Such is their soporific effect that I missed
the amendment and had to go through them twice!
Researching the police specific bits is however made slightly easier by
the fact that anything touching BTP always sits in the ‘miscellaneous’ bit at
the end. Perhaps this reflects something
more general about the history of BTP!
The extension of the jurisdiction of BTP officers has been a
slow and chequered process. Extension has been, at various times, been
opposed by other forces, the Home Office and, often by the Department for
Transport and its predecessors.
An example of when the Ministry of Transport (as it then
was) unsuccessfully supported a change will be the subject of a future blog.
Philip Trendall
March 2024
NOTES
British Railways Act 1979 Ch xxi
Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 Ch 20, Part 3
(i) One reader suggests that there may also be deeper undiagnosed
psychological issues at play as well.
(ii) These Acts give constables in ‘Police Act’
forces powers throughout England and Wales.
To save space I have not mentioned Scotland but the general provisions
mirror those described. One of the myths that grew up in the 1980s was that a
case in Scotland had extended jurisdiction throughout that realm. It didn’t.
It clarified the status of BTP constables within their
jurisdiction.
(iii) I do recall a case before the Stipendiary Magistrate at Clerkenwell Court in which there was a short discussion about jurisdiction. The defendant had been arrested in York Way, King's Cross after shouting at BTP officers about their legitimacy (in both senses of the word) and stating that as they were not 'real' police they couldn't do anything to him. The magistrate indicted that in his experience such conduct was the fastest way of being arrested and he assured the defendant that the cell he had spent the night in and the fine he was about to receive were perfectly real, although he admitted that it was possible that the BTP was a product of somebody's imagination!
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