Dartmoor wild camping appeal won

[mikem]

Aggravated trespass is something else again

 

[Stuart France]

Aggravated trespass is something else again

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.

 

[mikem]

As to trespass, a landowner would have to convince the court that s/he'd incurred a financial loss or was suffering an intolerable nuisance and the remedy would be seeking compensation or an injunction against the trespassers concerned.

 

[Stuart France]

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.