no real physical altercation occuring (other than pushing and grabbing),

Thats assault. If they did that to you what might they do next time to someone else?

was historically a bridleway, but landowner reclassified it as a footpath

Seemed odd, but just found the reference, it was a permissive bridleway, so the landowner can do that.

@marps85 you did nothing wrong and you have been assaulted. This sort of behaviour can’t be tolerated as they’ll keep doing it. You should report this to the police.
The off duty police officer obviously didn’t understand the law, but they will be a witness to the crime and should be traceable by the police. On or off-duty makes no difference, a police officer always has the same powers of arrest and a duty to uphold the law.
I like to think if I was in this situation that I’d hold my ground, but there comes a point when your safety is at risk that it’s best to capitulate.

To add further, there nothing to prevent you pushing a bicycle. They had no right to ask you to turn around. Had you been riding and got off when you saw them they that’s perhaps different but case law has already shown that a person pushing a bicycle across a pedestrian crossing is a pedestrian in the eyes of the law, not a cyclist, as long as they enter the crossing while pushing the bike rather than cycling into it and dismounting. As such, as long as you push your bikes along the footpath then there’s nothing the landowner can do. Echoing what’s said above too, intimidating behaviour is a BIG nono when it comes to public rights of way, you should report that to the council, and pushing and shoving is the very legal definition of assault and you should report it to the police. They should follow up and it will then be on record should shouty landowner get carried away and go too far

@marps85

Please report that to the police and council RoW officer. The criminal offence of assault is far more serious than the civil “offence” of trespass. You were doing absolutely nothing wrong, you were walking on a right of way.

I don’t think landowners (in theory at least) have to prove you’ve damaged anything (to accuse you of trespass), just that you’re on their private land and it’s private and you should therefore get off.

Now I could be wrong, but IIRC for the tort of trespass, the occupier/owner needs to show some kind of loss for compensation to be awarded. The loss could be their loss of amenity or ‘quiet enjoyment’ but that seems a stretch for farmland. OTOH if they take an injunction out against you then breaching an injunction would be a criminal matter, I think?

Also isn’t trespass designated as willful damage

Not for the tort of trespass; the direct interference with the land need not be intentional.

However, as I noted above, for any compensation to be awarded IIRC, some sort of harm or loss has to occur.

Now I could be wrong,

And unfortunately you are wrong. It’s in the thread somewhere, but trespass is actionable per se; i.e., there is no need for ‘damage’ to have happened merely the trespass to have occurred.

Rich_s sure but what would you have to compensate if there was nothing to be compensated? You don’t pay a fine to the Crown because it isn’t a criminal matter.

I think it’s more likely that the landowner would sue for an injunction against the trespasser. However, it’s possible that the landowner could sue for any benefit received by the trespasser. Like if they trespassed which saved hundreds of pounds in fuel costs, I guess.

@Rich_s you can’t serve an injunction against someone just because you don’t like what they are legally doing. Walking a pedal cycle on a footpath is a legal activity.
Suing the individual if they were trespassing is also very difficult to prove any loss.
It just isn’t going to happen unless the civil trespass is against some well financed organisation. Which the local farm is not.

I think you haven’t realised which question I was replying to.

you can’t serve an injunction against someone just because you don’t like what they are legally doing

I didn’t say they could.

Suing the individual if they were trespassing is also very difficult to prove any loss

You don’t need to prove a loss. As previously said a few times in the thread.

It just isn’t going to happen unless the civil trespass is against some well financed organisation. Which the local farm is not.

Agreed. We’ve been discussing the theoretical side of trespass as a tort rather than whatever the hell is going to happen in the real world.

You don’t need to prove a loss. As previously said a few times in the thread.

Ok, so you may be able to sue for some gain the other party made by directly interfering with your land (but which didn’t cause you a direct loss per se) although I don’t know the case law on this. I guess this would be an indirect loss or something? In the case of riding or pushing a bike down a path, I’m not sure what this could be?

Suing the individual if they were trespassing is also very difficult to prove any loss.

Nope, just by coming onto your land, the trespasser is preventing you from your legal ‘enjoyment’ ; which is a loss. So you could in theory calculate a rate of that and claim accordingly. I’m pretty sure though you’d struggle to get a name and address from them…

 In the case of riding or pushing a bike down a path, I’m not sure what this could be?

This is the point that’s never been tested. Conventional wisdom points to the above, ie it’s their land and by coming onto it riding a bike, you’re trespassing…But, the law also says the footpath is a public space, and there’s the plaguey rub: could you claim trespass if the cyclists sticks to the PROW? It would probably cost quite a lot, (more than for which you can claim trespass) and it’s not at all clear if you’d win.

My understanding of trespass, is that the landowner or their agent can ask you to leave the land – you do that by the nearest exit (you don’t need to retrace your steps). If they want to stop you doing it again they need to get an injunction, which they can only do if they have your name and address. They have no right to demand your name and address. So if you’re trespassing in some random wood, be polite and seek to leave by the nearest exit if asked, but other than that don’t worry about it.

Just tidying up a few legal points

The “cause of action” of trespass does not have causation of loss as part of it. It is unlike negligence or fraud in that sense. But to bring a court case you need to claim a remedy (and if you fail to get a remedy from the court you will have lost the case). Any remedy depends on proving a wrong has been committed.

Apart from damages (which requires some loss even if only loss of enjoyment etc.) an injunction or declaration are possible. A declaration would be appropriate where you refused to acknowledge the owners right, but normally an injunction would be the better one for a landowner to go for. Both are equitable remedies so at the discretion of the court. But in practice an injunction would likely be granted if you did not promise not to do it again when the landowner’s lawyers wrote to you.

There is quite a bit of confusing case-law on when the court can refuse to grant an injunction when infringement of a property right is proved. So it is possible one will be refused in a genuinely accidental one- off incident.

I am not dealing with the intricacies of the law of trespass here as it is not my area. Or was not.

@greyspoke

Could a possesser get an injunction from a judge without going through the process of actually suing? Or would this be limited to temporary injunctions pending court case?

Good question @i_scoff_cake. The answer is no, you always have to issue a claim before the court will grant any remedy*, including injunctions. The court assumes that you will wait until the full trial of the case before granting you any remedy. But if you can demonstrate (with supporting evidence) that justice will be defeated** unless you are granted an injunction earlier, you can ask the court to grant you an injunction before (and lasting until) trial (an “interim injunction”) but you will have to tell the other parties you are applying for one and argue it out with them at a hearing. And if you can similarly demonstrate that you need an injunction without first notifying the other parties, then you can ask the court to grant you an “ex-parte” injunction, but you will have to justify your application in an “inter-partes” hearing a bit later to get the injunction continued (so such an injunction would be very temporary).

If the particular facts support it, an interim injunction could be appropriate in a trespass case, but there would have to be something urgent, or some particular type of loss arising from it that meant the landowner could not wait for a full trial. If you regularly run rampage across someone’s back garden or their crops I am sure the courts would be sympathetic, but for a typical “occasionally using a track that isn’t a right of way” type case, the landowner will have their work cut out I think. But these things are very fact-dependent.

The phrase used in lay-peoples language “to take out an injunction” is misleading – only judges can grant injunctions, and they always need persuading that one is necessary. Injunctions can never be obtained by an administrative process, unlike judgments for the payment of money which can be obtained automaticaly, for example if a claim is not defended.

* Where it is important to keep the very existence of litigation secret, the court may grant an injunction if you promise to issue a claim once the injunction has been served. This is a slightly separate issue from what goes on with a “super injunction”.

**This gives a flavour of it, the precise legal test is a bit more intricate. The problem in all these cases is, the court is having to second-guess the trial outcome on incomplete evidence, and what happens if it gets that wrong? There was a time when much of my livelihood derived from getting these things, it is tricky and despite considerable legal safeguards built in to the law and procedure, injustice can result (whether an injunction is granted or refused).

This thread has turned out much more interesting than I anticipated…

I think things might be changing regards trespass laws? Wasn’t there something in the new Policing Bill that turned trespass from a civil to a criminal offence?

Policing Bill that turned trespass from a civil to a criminal offence?

If you’re doing it with 2 or more vehicles or are a traveller, though really that bit of the bill is about making it illegal to be a traveller and very little to do with trespass.

https://www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-access-land/use-your-right-to-roam