Is it illegal to drop boulders into the sea? The BBC has a video in which those opposing Greenpeace say so A Greenpeace ship has been dropping huge boulders into the sea off Brighton this week to stop fishing boats from trawling the sea bed. [...] But leaders of the fishing community describe the action as dangerous, illegal and irresponsible. What UK law prohibits this and what is the penalty for breaking it?
The sea area in question is a Marine Protected Area, which is referred to in the united-kingdom as a Marine Conservation Zone (as per No17 on the 2016 linked list) and lies within the UK's territorial waters. What UK law prohibits this? I have discounted my initial thoughts about s.58(2) of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 as I strongly suspect the Greenpeace vessel is neither UK registered nor proceeding to/from a UK port. I have also considered the Criminal Damage Act 1971 which, although potentially viable* and has off-shore jurisdiction, I have discounted in favour of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 which creates the offence of depositing objects in the UK's territorial waters without a licence: s.65 Requirement for a Licence (1) No person may - (a) carry on a licensable marine activity ... except in accordance with a marine licence granted by the appropriate licensing authority. s.66(1) Licensable Marine Activity includes: 1.(a) To deposit any substance or object within the UK marine licensing area, either in the sea or on or under the sea bed, from ... any ... vessel ... s.66(4) states the &quot;UK marine licensing area” consists of the UK Marine Area which is defined by s.42 to include: the area of sea within the seaward limits of the territorial sea adjacent to the United Kingdom What is the penalty? s.85(4) states anyone guilty of a s.65(1) offence is liable: (a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £50,000, (b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both. *relating to the seabed as well as the bottom trawlers.
england-and-wales s161 Penalties for causing certain kinds of danger or annoyance, Highways Act 1980 ... (3) If a person plays at football or any other game on a highway to the annoyance of a user of the highway he is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding [F3 level 1 on the standard scale]. ... (See also the s137 offence of wilful obstruction.) Some places may also have their own related bylaws, e.g. No person shall on any land adjoining a street play any game in a manner likely to cause obstruction to any traffic or to cause danger to any person in such a street Made under s235 of the Local Government Act 1972, for the prevention and suppression of nuisances. Traveling further back in time, the Highway Act 1835 provided for penalties on persons who &quot;play at Football or any other Game on any Part of the said Highways, to the Annoyance of any Passenger or Passengers&quot; and, in London, the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 similarly made it an offence to &quot;any Kite or play at any Game to the Annoyance of the Inhabitants or Passengers, or who shall make or use any Slide upon Ice or Snow in any Street or other Thoroughfare, to the common Danger of the Passengers.&quot; I find such a claim implausible, considering the large amount of my childhood that was spent playing in the street with no legal problems. It seems possible that the authorities turned a blind eye or your behaviour didn't come to their attention, or your street was designated as a 'play street' (introduced by the Street Playgrounds Act 1938, currently provided for by sections 29 to 31 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 as amended by the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991). Also, many alleged offenders might be younger than the criminal age of responsibility. According to TJ Miller MP (Colchester) in Hansard, speaking in 1860, in 1859 44 of London's children were sent to prison for playing games in the streets, and by April 1860 25 had been sent to prison - apparently Manchester had imprisoned none. In my youth we played in the street although we didn't put up basketball hoops, football goals or other such objects. These stories in the media seem to be rare and involve circumstances where the local authority received too many complaints, particularly when there is damage to homes, cars or flowerbeds - which may amount to criminal damage. Blackpool in 2006 Glenfield area of Leicester, 2007 Newark, Nottinghamshire, 2008 Manchester, 2010 - although this seems to be based on one complaint Hat-tip Pedestrian Liberation for the information about the older legislation and arrests of children.
Probably not In order to establish negligence as a Cause of Action under the tort of negligence, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant: had a duty to the plaintiff, breached that duty by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct (generally the standard of a reasonable person), the negligent conduct was the cause of the harm to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was, in fact, harmed or damaged. What standard of conduct do you think your employer failed to conform with? Owning a tree or a parking lot is not, of itself, negligent. Further, the branch fell "during high winds" - the wind is not within your employer's control. Now, if you can prove that your employer knew that the particular tree was ill and likely to drop branches in high winds and failed to do anything about it, that might be considered negligent. I know of a case where a council who had refused permission for a tree to be removed because it was "healthy" was found negligent when that tree latter (in calm winds) dropped a branch on Jaguar.
Maybe, Hence the Lawsuits In the absence of clear statute law these all circle around tort law. For the scooter companies, trespass to chattels, and for the affected landowners (who hire the removalists) trespass to land and nuisance seem applicable. In essence, I can’t take your stuff (trespass to chattels) but you can’t leave your stuff on my property (trespass to land) or impeding access to it (nuisance). If you do, I am entitled to the reasonable costs of dealing with it. Note that, as owner, you remain responsible for you stuff even if you rented it to someone else. Both sides are pushing hard into unexplored areas of law so we await the judgement with interest. Then we’ll know.
In England and Wales, under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 (as amended by section 59 and Schedule 12 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009) it's a criminal offence to do an act capable of encouraging or assisting someone to commit suicide. I think that applies to Scotland too, and there is similar law in Northern Ireland. Encouraging suicide is also a criminal offence in some other common law jurisdictions, e.g. in Australia. While in other common law jurisdictions, if there isn't such a law, the person might instead be prosecuted for manslaughter - or not at all. The minimum, maximum and recommended penalties may well differ between jurisdictions. I don't know what you mean by "vengeance rampage" but I'm not aware of any jurisdictions where it is lawful for a person to cause harm to someone for revenge. States tend to reserve for themselves a monopoly on the use of force.
In general, you cannot contract to do anything illegal. However, ... An argument could be made that permission has been granted to, for example, enter property and remove the item. If permission has been granted, entering property and taking an item is not a crime.
In English law there isn't a specific offence of &quot;mooning&quot;. However: It is conceivable that under Public Order legislation someone mooning could be found guilty of causing &quot;harassment, alarm or distress&quot;. There was a man arrested for mooning a speed camera, charged with a public order offence and subsequently acquitted. In 2010 a Kent man was issued with an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) that banned him from mooning (among other things). ASBOs were civil orders, breach of which was a criminal offence. Had that man continued to moon, he could have been found guilty of the criminal offence of breaching the order. (ASBOs have since been replaced with a system of civil injunctions and civil behaviour orders.) It is conceivable that repeatedly mooning one or more particular people would be deemed harrassment. I am not aware of criminal cases but there was an employment tribunal case that found the person had committed sexual harrassment in the workplace because they had mooned a colleague. At common law it is an offence to outrage public decency, &quot;an act which is lewd, obscene or of disgusting character, which outrages minimum standards of public decency as assessed by the jury.&quot; I doubt whether a brief moon would amount to that; worse behaviour might.
Scotland has a third possible verdict, which covers much of the situation you are asking about: “not proven”. While still an acquittal, it is typically used by judges and juries in situations where they are not suitably convinced the defendant is necessarily innocent, but not convinced the evidence supports a conviction. As recently as 2015, attempts to remove the third verdict from the Scottish legal system were rejected, despite it being seen as an easy way out for courts.