"4.1 On5 June 2003 the appellant was driving a Renault Laguna index number R569 ICR when it was involved with a collision with five parked cars. 4.2 The Car Park and Garage This is a Volvo franchise garage on a main road. Photographs are agreed. It is a commercial enterprise which invites business from the public in terms of sales, parts, servicing and works. There are clear blue signs advertising the trade. Outside the main showroom there is a car park area and beyond that, next to the works area, there is a further car park. It is here where the accident occurred. 4.3 Security There is a double gate which closes off the inner car park from the outer premises. It is opened early in the morning and closed at 6 or 7pm depending on the time of year. this car park is an enclosed area; there are no footpaths/roads leading into or away from it and driving a car one would have to turn around and go back to leave it. There is a sign in the inner car park indicating 'Customers Parking'. 4.4 Access to Parking The car park is used by customers whether for sales, services, parts or works. The only public use of it therefore is that of business customers or potential customers for these purposes."
"Whether the judge and justices were entitled to conclude that the car park to the rear of the Volvo franchise garage at Barkingside Motor Co, Fencepiece Road, Barkingside was a 'public place' within the meaning ofsection 3 Road Traffic Act 1988 ?"
"i. The burden of proving that a particular location is a 'public place' rests on the Crown to prove beyond reasonable doubt' ii. There must be evidence that the public actually utilised premises before a court can conclude that they are a 'public place'. It is not sufficient to say that the public could have access if they were so inclined: R v Spence [1999] RTR 353; iii. Premises will be private where they are entered for reasons beneficial to the occupier: DPP v Vivier[1991] 4 All ER 18 , 24d, or where they are visited for business purposes: Harrison v Hill [1932] JC 13, 16; iv. However, even business premises will be 'public' if the location is a public service, a railway station, a hospital or other public utility: R v DPP (ex parte Taussik (unreported,7 June 2000 ), paragraph 20. This will include a pub car park during licensed hours: R v Waters(1963) 47 Cr App R 149 ,154; v. It is submitted that the distinction is to be made where premises are occupied by a large number of people -- even if there has been a condition of entry for those people, the premises will be a 'public place': Planton v DPP [2002] RTR 9, para 17 (explaining DPP v Vivier). It is submitted that this is because a potentially large number of individuals need to be caught or protected by the umbrella of the legislation."
"Having considered all the cases referred to us we applied the following test, ie: 'when does a member of the public by his attendance at a certain place cease to be a member of the public as such and become a member of a special class in relation to those premises so that they should not be considered as a matter of law for these purposes a public place?' We considered examples eg, a postman, a meter reader, a guest. Here the attendance of such people is wholly associated with their personal special relationship with the premises. We considered that some cases were not so clear. We were concerned with the submission of the appellant that where a car park is concerned, if those with access are restricted to people attending for business purposes, they are a special class and thus, according to legal principle, it is not a public place. In our judgment, having considered all the authorities, we do not consider that that can be the definitive test. We consider that there were many retail outlets where the car park thereof were public places. One had to consider eg, car parks in railway stations, supermarkets, drive-through food sellers and outlets such as Bluewater and Lakeside. Public house car parks have been held to be public places. In the case of Greenwood a hospital car park was held to be a public place. In the case of Spence a small yard attached to a small office building which led nowhere was held not to be a public place. We concluded that this case is distinguishable from that of Spence. Here we have photographs which show that all members of the public are invited by signs to enter the premises and park in the context of a retail commercial enterprise, quite different from the small office building in Spence. We considered the Panama case referred to in Vivier. Members of the public using the second car park for commercial reasons and parking there, in our judgment, did not cease to be members of the public and become a special class in terms of the Vivier test. They remained members of the public with an interest in sales, repairs or parts of vehicles. The second car park was therefore a public place."
"I think that, when the statute speaks of 'the public' in this connection, what is meant is the public generally, and not the special class of members of the public who have occasion for business or social purposes to go to the farmhouse or to any part of the farm itself; were it otherwise, the definition might just as well have included all private roads as well as all public highways. I think also that, when the statue speaks of the public having 'access' to the road, what is meant is neither (at one extreme) that the public has a positive right of its own to access, nor (at the other extreme) that there exists no physical obstruction, of greater or less impenetrability, against physical access by the public; but that the public actually and legally and legally enjoys access to it. It is, I think, a certain state of use or possession that is pointed to. There must be, as matter of fact, walking or driving by the public on the road, and such walking or driving must be lawfully performed -- that is to say, must be permitted or allowed, either expressly or impliedly, by the person or persons to whom the road belongs."
"What Lord Sands, and indeed Lord Clyde, say in Harrison v Hill can really be summarised thus. A road is one to which the public have access if (a) it is in fact used by members of the public and (b) such use is expressly or implicitly allowed -- or, putting it the other way round, not achieved by overcoming physical obstruction or defying express or implied prohibition. Factor (b) presents no problem. But factor (a) does. In particular, as it seems to us, (a) essentially begs rather than answers the other crucial question whether those who use the road are members of the public. Take our case. We have not the least hesitation in accepting that the only material use of this caravan park was by those who had complied with the various site requirements and been properly admitted, in short those who had been expressly or implicitly allowed into the caravan park, either as caravaners or campers or as their bona fide guests. We think it right to ignore both the few trespassers who escaped the security controls and also the users of the bridleway (which in any event could not affect the character of the park as a whole). And, indeed we do not understand Mr Glen for the prosecutor to contend otherwise. What that leaves outstanding, however, is the critical question: are the caravaners, campers and guests to be regarded, within the park, still as members of the general public, or are they instead, as the justices found, at that stage a special class of members of the public? Upon that question, Harrison v Hill helps but little: there is simply Lord Clyde's reference to 'the special class of members of the public who have occasion for business or social purposes' to use the farm road."