Collins v Wilcock

Facts

A police officer wished to question Collins, who was suspected of soliciting. Collins refused to speak to her and walked away. The officer took hold of her arm to stop her. Collins then scratched the arm of the officer. She was charged with assaulting a police officer in the execution of her duty.

History

Collins was convicted by the justices and appealed by way of case stated to the Divisional Court.

Issue

Whether the officer was acting in the execution of her duty when she took hold of Collins, and more broadly what physical contact amounts to a battery and how far the law allows the use of touching by police officers to detain a person for questioning.

Held

Appeal allowed and conviction quashed. The officer had committed a battery by taking hold of Collins to detain her, and was not acting in the execution of her duty, so Collins was not guilty of assaulting an officer in execution of her duty.

Ratio

• Every touching of another person is prima facie a battery, but physical contact that is generally acceptable in the ordinary conduct of daily life is not unlawful. Such contact is a matter of exception and not consent, and it does not extend to restraining a person.
• A police officer has no power to detain a person for questioning by taking hold of her without arresting her. If the officer does so, the officer is acting outside the execution of her duty, and the person may lawfully resist with reasonable force.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• Battery is the infliction of unlawful force, and the law protects the bodily integrity of each person against any form of physical interference, however slight, without the need for hostility.
• Ordinary social contact does not give rise to liability, but this is better explained by a general principle of acceptable conduct than by an implied consent which can be absent in reality.
• A police officer acts in the execution of her duty only if she acts within her lawful powers, and a power to detain for questioning without arrest does not exist.

Where it fits in the module

In the Non-Fatal Offences topic the case frames the actus reus of battery and the debate about hostility. It also links to the law on consent and bodily autonomy in later cases such as Brown and Dica, and to the question of how far police may use force. The central question is whether a general social exception to battery is a satisfactory replacement for the consent-based reasoning it rejected.

Criticisms

• The general exception for acceptable daily life is vague and leaves the boundary of battery uncertain, because it depends on social norms that vary between people and settings.
• By rejecting implied consent as the explanation for ordinary contact, the court left the relationship between consent, hostility and the exception unclear, and later cases have used hostility again.
• The decision protects bodily integrity strongly but makes the police power to act short of arrest narrow, and it has been argued that the policy balance between liberty and effective policing was not fully examined.