Leatherman/ Gerber and the Law

As a (sailing) lawyer once pointed out to me, the "reasonable cause" is a defence: it does not give the right to carry a knife.
 
Last summer while France was on high alert after the Nice attack, my local port had occasional patrols by armed soldiers. One day I had to lug a new diving BC (a sort of bulky inflatable waistcoat with various tubes and bits of string hanging from it) and two 907 gas bottles to my boat. The most obvious way to carry it was to don the BC, and carry a 907 in each hand. I was half way to my boat when I bumped into the army patrol. I put the bottles down and put my hands up. They had a good laugh and moved on.
 
Ric said:
Luckily in the UK we have common law system and most police officers have a large degree of common sense. They are not going to bother a middle-aged white bloke in a yacht marina with a leather-man on his belt. If you were a hoodie and were walking around an inner-city area late at night then quite rightly you would be arrested.
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Indeed, and even these days just about enough common sense exists within most police forces for this to be good advice. Remember however it is ultimately up to magistrates not the police to decide if your possession was reasonable under the circumstances although I can understand most wouldn't want the aggravation involved with taking things that far......

I carry a Leatherman both in the glove compartment of my car and in my day bag when I do some occasional lorry driving, and I'm pretty confident neither is contravening the legislation as it was intended. I did however have a moment last year when standing at the bar with a group of friends I realised I was still wearing my lifejacket that we had been required to wear on the trot boat ashore, and it has a nice sharp knife attached to it.....
 
Having served on a Jury where a young black guy had been arrested for carrying a locking knife at 02.00 in the morning in SE London. He had blood on his clothes. Cutting it very short, his argument was that he had been using it earlier in the day for cutting up fruit and forgotten to take it out of his pocket. The whole defence was around the fact the Police hadn't proved he was carrying it as a weapon. 2 of us argued in deliberation that the offence was carrying it, but the rest of the Jury were adamant it wasn't proved he was carrying it as a weapon, he was found not guilty. I can't see how a Jury would find a middle aged man guilty of carrying a multi tool as an offensive weapon. However, a Majistrate maybe another matter.
 
The location is the issue not the fixed blade. There are many large kitchn knves that would be seen as a weapon if you carried it in the street but not when you have it in the kitchen. Same with the Gerber - if you are carrying it into your local bank then plod could quite correctly view it as suspicious since you have no real reason for doing so.
 
A few years ago, around the new anti terrorism law of 2000, It had the section 44 clause in it.
Which was meant to be used, if say a dignitary or royalty were due to visit a certain place.
The local Chief Constable could declare the area a section 44.. which meant that the police could stop anyone they did not like the look of, and search them, until the visit was over.
However, Most of the Chief Constables just called their whole area a section 44..
In one case, an elderly gent was stopped during a Drink Drive thing.... After he passed the police breathalyser, he should have been waved on his way... However the police decided to do a section 44, and on searching the vehicle, the police found a Leatherman tool, in its leather pouch, in the glove compartment.
The police arrested the elderly gent and charged him with having an offensive weapon.......
Unfortunately the UK papers, did no follow up, so I never found out , if the person in question, had his case thrown out, or if his lawyer got him off ? Of course a conviction, would look good on the anti knife statistics !
So, do not expect todays police, to show any form of common sense, those days have gone !
 
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Pretty certain I followed a link about a leatherman earlier this year and found this story:

Man about 67 taken to task by police after they'd seen him with a leatherman. He said that he had been very embarrassed by the incident. I think that he was charged and released as far as I can remember. However, a day later he was arrested after stabbing people near a supermarket as some sort of weird retaliation over the earlier incident.

I will see if I can find the link again. I imagine that the police would have taken some stick if they'd not charged this guy initially because he only had a multi-tool. Of course they'd also be blamed for not doing more if he'd killed someone a few hours later. Police might become less tolerant of people with multi-tools with incidents like that one.

EDIT: Found a link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-37872506
 
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That story doesn't say it was the Leatherman that led to his initial arrest, just that he was arrested for possessing a knife. It does say he went home upon release and that the subsequent attacks involved the Leatherman.

I don't think anyone is disputing the Leathermans capability, but it would be interesting to see if there is an example of the police demonstrating such poor common sense that they did arrest an elderly (or even middle aged...) yachtsman for possessing one in public......
 
STILL AFLOAT said:
A few years ago, around the new anti terrorism law of 2000, It had the section 44 clause in it.
Which was meant to be used, if say a dignitary or royalty were due to visit a certain place.
The local Chief Constable could declare the area a section 44.. which meant that the police could stop anyone they did not like the look of, and search them, until the visit was over.
However, Most of the Chief Constables just called their whole area a section 44..
In one case, an elderly gent was stopped during a Drink Drive thing.... After he passed the police breathalyser, he should have been waved on his way... However the police decided to do a section 44, and on searching the vehicle, the police found a Leatherman tool, in its leather pouch, in the glove compartment.
The police arrested the elderly gent and charged him with having an offensive weapon.......
Unfortunately the UK papers, did no follow up, so I never found out , if the person in question, had his case thrown out, or if his lawyer got him off ? Of course a conviction, would look good on the anti knife statistics !
So, do not expect todays police, to show any form of common sense, those days have gone !
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What you are saying here is that you dont know the details of the story or how it ended up but you suspect it was all about knife statistics and you are sure the police did not use any common sense.. Do you think you might be prejudiced?
 
Ric said:
Luckily in the UK we have common law system and most police officers have a large degree of common sense. They are not going to bother a middle-aged white bloke in a yacht marina with a leather-man on his belt. If you were a hoodie and were walking around an inner-city area late at night then quite rightly you would be arrested.
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And that kind of thinking is how we end up with institutionalised racism in the police force such that a young black man is ten times more likely to be stopped and searched than a young white man...
 
Reptile Smile said:
And that kind of thinking is how we end up with institutionalised racism in the police force such that a young black man is ten times more likely to be stopped and searched than a young white man...
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No, the reason the police end up with a label such as that is because some people were to frightened to face the facts and instead sought to appease the people shouting the loudest.

When a police officer in a particular area has the offender in a variety of street crimes described to them in a certain way then they are going to go out and look for suspects that fit that description. That's good police work.

If you had your silver BMW stolen you wouldn't be to impressed if all the police did was go out and stop red Toyota's would you?

There are areas in the UK where statistically you will find far more white Europeans get stop checked than any other particular ethnic group. Strangely enough that never seems to be a problem or make a headline.
 
If you want to carry around a multi-tool "just in case", I would recommend something like a Victorinox with no locking blades and blades less than 3". The law has a specific exemption for these kinds of multi-tools. As long as you don't start threatening people with it, you're not breaking any laws.

Any tool with a locking blade runs the risk of landing you in trouble. Whilst these aren't necessarily offensive weapons, they are articles with a point or blade (a lesser offence, but still an offence). As has already been mentioned, you can provide a defence of reasonable cause. If you're walking around a shopping centre with one, and you get stopped, and you say you have it "just in case", that likely won't fly. At best it'll be confiscated, at worst you'll get nicked and charged. There's been a ton of knife crime, recently, so it's straight to court for anyone caught with a blade, no cautions or alternative disposals for you.

As is always the case, all the wrong'uns carrying blades claiming innocence have spoiled it for those who genuinely have no nefarious agenda.
 
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