Keeping the King's peace

[Warrigal]

This is a new one on me. I'm not sure whether a similar charge is ever laid in England but a woman in Canberra has been charged with "failure to 'keep the King's Peace' ". Among other things, she bit a policeman.

A failure to 'keep the King's Peace' and the alleged biting of a police officer has almost landed a Canberra woman in jail for Christmas. The woman, 44, was granted bail by the ACT Magistrates Court today after being charged with causing actual bodily harm and resisting arrest.

Police say they were called to a home in Moncrieff early yesterday, after reports of a disturbance between her and her partner. After police spoke to the couple, they both signed a written agreement to 'keep the King's Peace' for twenty four hours.

Police say signing an agreement to keep the peace is used as a way to diffuse tense situations, to avoid the full process of arrest. However, within hours police were called back to the same home, after a report the woman had allegedly been acting aggressively again. It was decided there had been a breach of the peace, and the woman was arrested.

Police allege the woman resisted arrest, becoming aggressive and allegedly biting one of the officers on the leg.

Today in court, prosecutors asked that she be banned from being near her partner, who the court was told had been supplying her with drugs. But the woman's lawyer urged the court not to restrict the pair from being in each other's company, because they plan to marry in three weeks time.

The court agreed, but imposed strict conditions on the woman, including that she not take any drugs, submit to supervision and engage with mental health services.

The case will return to court in January.

MSN

 

[WheatenLover]

I am not going to ask how she got her mouth anywhere near the policeman's leg.

 

[hollydolly]

Never heard of it Warrigal..so I looked it up.. and it's an ancient law from the early middle ages....

Across the inquests we learn about the dangers that officials charged with maintaining public order were exposed to. In Oxford, Richard Overhe, a “constable of the peace, to preserve the king’s peace”, was mortally attacked in the middle of a summer night by four students ‘with swords, bucklers, and other arms’.

Keeping the Peace - Medieval Murder Maps

 

[Magna-Carta]

I’ve never heard of this used as a charge before.

From the article, it seems the ‘King’s Peace’ wording was part of a written agreement between the couple due to their earlier altercation. Perhaps insisted on by the police and used to add weight to a formal written agreement? To be used as an agreed cooling off period before things get out of hand.

It seems like very little cooling off actually happened, as the police were later called back. Then she was charged with "causing actual bodily harm and resisting arrest", but not charges for not keeping the peace, Kings or otherwise.

 

[jujube]

There are some funny charges out there. Back in the 1970's, the town we lived in was near bankruptcy and couldn't afford to hire probation officers. They put out an appeal for people with the proper background to serve as volunteer probation officers. Since my late husband's degrees were in Guidance & Counseling, he volunteered and was assigned a young man who had gotten drunk and violated a number of ordinances. He had been charged with "Tumultuous Behavior". I guess that's a fancy term for "Drunk and Disorderly".