Dartmoor wild camping appeal won
- Thread starter Badlad
- Start date
Stuart France
Active member
Not sure how relevant the above comment is to this thread because aggravated trespass is the criminal version of trespass. Plain vanilla trespass is a civil matter between someone doing something - or even nothing at all - on someone else's land except being there, and it is not police matter.
Aggravated trespass is obstructing, disrupting, or intimidating others from carrying out their 'lawful activities' particularly commercial ones where there is a financial impact and especially when it was done with clear intent in that regard, and so it is a police matter.
Clearly setting out to harm commercial interests and intimidate others etc does not apply to parking considerately on some grass verge by the roadside to go for a walk or go caving or some other leisure activity, so the comment seems to be irrelevant. Countryside visitors generally are not nasty people.
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Stuart France
Active member
That is right. A landowner would have to convince the court that s/he's incurred a financial loss or was suffering intolerable nuisance to pursue a CIVIL case against the trespassers concerned in order for the court to order appropriate compensation or injunct the particular trespasser(s) not to do it again. Merely parking inoffensively by the roadside does not meet those criteria and it isn't actionable.
In the case of someone doing the parking in a more organised way with intent to bring about a financial loss or to create intolerable suffering for the landowner by design then the police could involve themselves because it has become CRIMINAL.
Much as it may please a minority group within caving to frustrate access for everyone else, which may include intimidating them concerning parking rights, if you do not set out to be an intolerable nuisance yourself and allow yourself to be the cause genuine financial loss to others then you have nothing to worry about in parking considerately by the roadside for a benign countryside pursuit like walking, running, watching birds, having a picnic, landscape photography, flying a kite and all the rest including caving.
In the case of someone doing the parking in a more organised way with intent to bring about a financial loss or to create intolerable suffering for the landowner by design then the police could involve themselves because it has become CRIMINAL.
Much as it may please a minority group within caving to frustrate access for everyone else, which may include intimidating them concerning parking rights, if you do not set out to be an intolerable nuisance yourself and allow yourself to be the cause genuine financial loss to others then you have nothing to worry about in parking considerately by the roadside for a benign countryside pursuit like walking, running, watching birds, having a picnic, landscape photography, flying a kite and all the rest including caving.
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RobinGriffiths
Well-known member
Supreme Court backs wild camping on Dartmoor
The Supreme Court upholds the legal right to wild camp on Dartmoor in Devon in a landmark case.
www.bbc.co.uk
Mark Wright
Well-known member
Probably another U turn.
Stuart France
Active member
The Supreme Court case revolved around whether 'ceasing to move onwards' in the course of using Access Land for open-air recreation (within the meaning of the Dartmoor Byelaws) turns outdoor recreation (including camping and going to sleep in a tent or elsewhere) into something other than outdoor recreation which is what is clearly permitted by the local legislation, subject to various controls like not starting fires. The Dartmoor Byelaws were consulted upon by the NPA in 2021 when various revisions were contemplated. This decision-making process by a public body handed the complainants of this case the platform on which to challenge the interpretation of local and other legislation.
The Supreme Court (SC) appeal also touched, amongst other side or technical issues away from the core of the matter such as whether Hansard can be relied upon to document what Parliament had intended to bring about by reference to what was said during debates. These side issues are helpfully discussed from a caving perspective in that various public bodies that we know well might take debate completely out of its original context to further their private agendas.
The SC judgment makes for fascinating reading too, but it makes no difference at all to the earlier CA judgment which was that being enclosed (in a tent etc) does not convert open-air recreation into something different, and that losing consciousness (going to sleep, head injury etc) does not convert something that began as open-air recreation into something different.
Translated to a caving context, being enclosed in a cave or going to sleep in an underground (or otherwise) expeditionary situation does not prevent the activity as a whole from being "an ongoing open-air outdoors recreation situation" when that is its overall character.
Our opposition will now have to fall back on their weaker arguments, such as that cave passage outlines are not drawn out on regular OS maps, and that caves which could be entered above 600m altitude where cavers later might descend to below 600m in ignorance cannot be on Access Land even though the caves (or parts of them) are within the Access Land boundary as shown on OS maps, and other twaddle.
Defra, NRW, Natural England have all, and for a long time in my personal view, been in breach of Section 20 of the CROW Act by giving incorrect information to visitors to the underground environment as to their statutory access rights. These quangos will never risk their internal beliefs being put to proof, so I suggest that we simply ignore them until they adopt a more constructive position on caving.
The Supreme Court (SC) appeal also touched, amongst other side or technical issues away from the core of the matter such as whether Hansard can be relied upon to document what Parliament had intended to bring about by reference to what was said during debates. These side issues are helpfully discussed from a caving perspective in that various public bodies that we know well might take debate completely out of its original context to further their private agendas.
The SC judgment makes for fascinating reading too, but it makes no difference at all to the earlier CA judgment which was that being enclosed (in a tent etc) does not convert open-air recreation into something different, and that losing consciousness (going to sleep, head injury etc) does not convert something that began as open-air recreation into something different.
Translated to a caving context, being enclosed in a cave or going to sleep in an underground (or otherwise) expeditionary situation does not prevent the activity as a whole from being "an ongoing open-air outdoors recreation situation" when that is its overall character.
Our opposition will now have to fall back on their weaker arguments, such as that cave passage outlines are not drawn out on regular OS maps, and that caves which could be entered above 600m altitude where cavers later might descend to below 600m in ignorance cannot be on Access Land even though the caves (or parts of them) are within the Access Land boundary as shown on OS maps, and other twaddle.
Defra, NRW, Natural England have all, and for a long time in my personal view, been in breach of Section 20 of the CROW Act by giving incorrect information to visitors to the underground environment as to their statutory access rights. These quangos will never risk their internal beliefs being put to proof, so I suggest that we simply ignore them until they adopt a more constructive position on caving.
The supreme court judgement basically upholds a broad interpretation of the critical legislative terms such as 'open air recreation'. It tends to offer more support to the argument that the bca crow group put forward, and as it dismissed the Darwall appeal, it seems to dismiss the main argument put forward by the anti crow lobby. Feels like some form of vindication to me. 
Stuart France
Active member
Yes, quite.The supreme court judgement basically upholds a broad interpretation of the critical legislative terms such as 'open air recreation'. It tends to offer more support to the argument that the bca crow group put forward, and as it dismissed the Darwall appeal, it seems to dismiss the main argument put forward by the anti crow lobby. Feels like some form of vindication to me.
This Supreme Court judgment settles the interpretation of the 1985 Dartmoor Commons Act which states that "the public shall have a right of access to the commons on foot and horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation". Five of the UK's most senior judges have unanimously said this is "open-ended and unqualified" and "naturally includes camping". So "open air recreation" is "open-ended and unqualified".
If only the BCA had the money not to have abandoned its CROW case after dragging our combative opposition to the very courthouse steps.
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