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4 UK Urban Explorers Face Orders Not To Talk With Each Other For 10 Years
First time accepted submitter Trapezium Artist writes "Four friends apprehended exploring the disused Aldwych station in London's Underground are faced with an 'anti-social behaviour order' (ASBO) which would forbid them from talking to each other for a full 10 years. The so-called 'Aldwych four,' experienced urban explorers, were discovered in the tunnels under the UK's capital city a few days before last year's royal wedding and the greatly increased security measures in place led to their being interviewed by senior members of the British Transport Police. Nevertheless, once their benign intentions had been established, they were let off with a caution. However, following an accident caused by another, unrelated group of urban explorers in the tunnels a few months later, Transport for London applied to have ASBOs issued to the Aldwych four. These would forbid them from any further expeditions, from blogging or otherwise publicly discussing any exploits, and even from talking with each other for the 10 year duration of the order. One could argue about the ethics of urban exploration, but this nevertheless seems like an astonishingly heavy-handed over-reaction by TfL."
Seriously folks, you have to Google them.
One basic summary of them is that you can issue an ASBO to stop someone from doing something *that isn't a crime*, if they then break the order, then *that is a crime* and you can arrest and jail them.
Check out their site: silentuk, very cool pictures there.
Here are the Aldwych station pictures
It's still breaking and entering. Call it urban exploring or whatever, but tresspassing is still illegal.
If there was any breaking involved then it might be, but if they didn't break in then it generally isn't.
In London there are a large numbers of squatters occupying various empty buildings. While it is illegal to break in. it isn't illegal to enter and live there if the building isn't secure. They can even install their own locks. Yes an owner can apply to the court to remove squatters but until the court issues an order they can stay. I believe that if someone occupies a place for five years then they can even get ownership (take that with a pinch of salt).
Asbo's on the other hand do not need a law to be broken to be applied for and granted. Currently there are Asbo's being served on homeless people in order to be able to remove them from central london in time for the olympic games later this year, (this I know from a lawyer trying to represent one of said homeless people).
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This is not a ruling. A court hasn't applied this ASBO, it's just TFL requesting it.
Bylaws are local council ( or in this case transport authority) laws.
Fines can be levied, etc. but they cannot be criminally prosecuted : the local authority can bring you to court, but not criminal court; for that a case has to be prepared by the police for the Director of Public Prosecutions (an independent prosecutor).
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
Adverse Possesson. At least ten years (often twelve), openly and continuously occupied. The reason to have this rule is, suppose you mistakenly build something in very slightly the wrong place. Well, if someone notices while they're still building it, or shortly after, you have a big argument with various builders, architects, map makers, etc. and then you end up claiming on insurance to either buy the extra little bit of land or have your wall re-built in the right place. But suppose they only notice 20 years later, by which time probably the company of builders don't exist any more, the architect has retired... it can't be that important or they'd have noticed sooner, and making you tear down a wall (or even a whole house) is disproportionate, so instead the land transfers to you if the problem comes before a court.
But yes, if you go onto a piece of private land, build a permanent structure like a house on it, and nobody stops you from building and occupying the strucure for twelve years, then you own the land it was built on outright.
you need a guilty mind and a guilty act to constitute a crime.
The law might have been like that once, but it isn't now (strict criminal liability) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_(criminal).
Strict liability is one of those things that seems to creep in when it seems to lawmakers like a good idea at the time. But once it's in place, the lawmakers find it rather easy to overextend it, and make it cover more and more matters that many people would say ought to be judged under the old standard of intent.
-wb-