On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 11:06:43 -0000, Chris Game <[email hidden]>
Quoted message said:Paul Rooney said:Trespassing is not against the law in England and Wales, outside very restricted circumstances.
It is NOT illegal, people!!
So what are these new rights under CROW all about then, if not to allow access where previously
it wasn't?
Trespass law may be 'a mess'; but it does exist, and there's a lot of it.
As things stand at the moment, you can't be sued for merely walking on someone else's land. It's not
an offence of any kind. It doesn't (usually) amount to damaging anything of theirs. But you have no
legal right to do it. They can ask you to leave, and remove you if you refuse. You can be sued if
you do any damage. CROW gives you the legal right to walk on other people's land (some of it). They
will no longer have the right to ask you to leave, nor to remove you, on the relevant bits of land.
Pitching a tent on someone else's land is similar (it's a form of trespass) - if you did it on a
putting green, no doubt you could be sued for damage. If you do it at Sty Head tarn, the owner could
take a chance on suing you but they'd almost certainly lose on the grounds that placing pegs in the
ground in that area didn't cause damage in any relevant sense.
Destroying cairns, of course, is a grave offence (-:
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