An amendment to the Public Order Offences Act 2020 is set to enter the Houses of Parliament later this week, intending to change the offence of riot.
The offence, which was amended previously, is defined within the Act as:
“Where ten or more persons, present together, use or threaten unlawful violence for a common purpose and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a reasonable person present at the scene to fear for his personal safety, each of the persons using unlawful violence for the common purpose commits an offence.”
However, later on within the section of the offence, it begins to reference “the six persons”, rather than ten, and this has caused ambiguity for police officers dealing with public order.
The new amendment, proposed by the Commissioner of the Metropolis, The Earl of Sefton, seeks to correct these issuing by changing the Act to reference a group of six persons throughout.
This change will ensure the act remains clear, while enabling officers to take harsher action with regards to public disorder, as the threshold for how many people are required to participate to incite riot will be reduced.
The amendment will enter the Lords on 18 October this week.