Police win 'peaceful picketing appeal
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• The law is broken when vehicles are prevented from crossing a strikers' picket line by physical obstruction, Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, ruled last week.
The Queen's Bench divisional court allowed, with costs, a police appeal against the dismissal by Stockport magistrates of a summons alleging that an official of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians was guilty of obstruction under the Highways Act 1959.
It was alleged that the Union official, Mr J. E. Broome, of Stockport, stood in front of a lorry attempting to enter a building site during the national strike of building workers last year, Lord Widgery said that although the Industrial Relations Act allowed peaceful picketing, the methods of persuading anyone not to cross the line were restricted to oral or visual means. The Act, said Lord Widgery, did not authorize pickets to do acts, such as the physical obstruction of vehicles or persons, which would be illegal apart from the Industrial Relations Act.
The magistrates have been directed to convict Mr Broome although the court certified that the case raised a point of general public importance and Mr Broome was granted leave to appeal to the House of Lords.
Lord Widgery said that the magistrates had put too wide a construction on pickets' rights. The right was merely to attend for the purpose of peaceful picketing. The magistrates had ruled that by holding up the lorry for nine minutes Mr Broome had not acted unreasonably.