Bring On September 2nd.

As part of the G20 protests on April 1st a group of performance artists known as the Space Hijackers drove a tank through the streets of London I what believe to be a satirical statement about the heavy handed tactics the police were expected to use against the demonstrators. Perhaps unsurprisingly the tank was stopped by the police who, after establishing that the vehicle was 100% road legal, decided to arrest all 11 of the occupants on a charge of impersonating a police officer. After 4 months the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have decided that they are going to continue with the prosecution and the 11 will stand trial on September 2nd 2009.

As this is now an ongoing court case I am obviously limited in what I can publish on the matter however I think it is fair to say that the offence the 11 are charged with is section 90.2 of the Police Act 1996 which states;

"(2) Any person who, not being a constable, wears any article of police uniform in circumstances where it gives him an appearance so nearly resembling that of a member of a police force as to be calculated to deceive shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale."

So in order to secure a conviction the prosecution must prove that a person dressed like this;


can reasonably be mistaken for a person dressed like this;


by a sighted person during daylight hours.

Of course the trial will be made more interesting by the fact that a recent Parliamentary inquiry into the policing of the G20 protests found a number of police officers were unable to dress themselves in proper uniform so my advice to anyone who is planning to go along to watch the trial is to get there early.