Trespass to goods 257include pointing a gun at a person or threatening to punch them. It is not assault to photo-
graph a person against his or her will, because there is no fear of an immediate battery; mere
words can amount to assault, however. They can also prevent actions from being assault, as
in Tuberville vSavage (1669), in which case the defendant’s placing his hand on his sword
was not assault because the defendant said: ‘If it were not assize time, I would not take such
words from you.’
False imprisonment
False imprisonment is committed by directly and intentionally depriving the claimant of
his or her liberty. A business might commit false imprisonment by wrongfully detaining a
person suspected of shoplifting. The deprivation of the claimant’s liberty must be total but
there is no need to actually put someone in prison. Preventing a person from leaving a car,
by driving so fast that he could not get out, has been held to be false imprisonment.
Damages for false imprisonment can compensate for injured feelings or for loss of
reputation. In Thompson vMetropolitan Police Commissioner (1998) the Court of Appeal
gave some rough guidelines indicating that £500 might be payable for the first hour of false
imprisonment, about £3,000 for the first 24 hours and that the amount should diminish
progressively for each subsequent day.
Defences to trespass to the person
Consent
It is a defence to trespass to the person that the claimant consented to what the defendant
did. This defence would apply, for example, in relation to sports such as boxing or football.
As we have seen, the burden of proof falls on the claimant to show that there was no
consent.
Contributory negligence
This defence was considered in the previous chapter in relation to the tort of negligence (see
p. 236).
Self-defence
There is no specific defence of self-defence, but at common law a person can use reasonable
force to prevent injury or the threat of it. Also, s. 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 allows a
person to use such force as is reasonable in the prevention of a crime.
Statutory authority
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 gives the police the power to arrest and search
people in certain circumstances. Similarly, judges and magistrates acting in good faith are
protected from claims of false imprisonment.
Trespass to goods
The tort of conversion is the main form of trespass to goods. It is committed if the defendant
deals with goods in a manner which is inconsistent with the right of another person to
possess the goods. Conversion can be committed by a person who does not know that he or
she is denying somebody else the right to possess the goods. However, a defendant cannot