Alice is at a protest and gets into an altercation with another group. She shouts various lawful slogans towards them, and they report her to the police who arrive, seeking to “deescalate” the situation even while no crimes have even arguably been committed. The police try to persuade the two groups to go in separate directions, lest anyone would like to be arrested that day.
Alice challenges Officer Connor’s bluff, questioning whether, for someone to be arrested, they mustn’t first commit some criminal offence. Connor replies, no, cause if other people are offended by your chanting then there would be a “breach of the peace.”
Not knowing what this is, Alice capitulated and backs down from exercising her article 10 rights when the police rightly had no power to insist she stop, and it seems that their priorities should be firstly upholding and defending everyone’s human rights including by not dissuading them from exercising them through deception, and then, if not in conflict with the former, encouraging them to take courses of action that may be wise as far as avoiding unsafe situations on a precautionary basis.
What implications or consequences does such misleading sophistry designed to deter the public from either exercising their fundamental rights, or from legitimately pursuing the services of the police, perhaps in hopes that they will not be dismissed by lazy sophistic excuses?
If it transpired in the case of deterring the public from exercising their fundamental convention rights, then would it just give a cause of civil action under the human rights act?
Or would there be a more immediate or direct implication/remedy? Regardless, is there anything proscribing the police from behaving in such legally misleading manners?
