The Cabinet Office and Downing Street are not public areas, but this story is relevant to the identical SOCPA section 128 perimeters around the Palace of Westminster and Portcullis House Protected Sites, which used to have public areas until 1st June.
The Sunday Express carries this story, which the Press Association and other media have pocked up / copied.
The Sunday Express
COUPLE 'BYPASS PM'S SECURITY
' Sunday June 10,2007
Two intruders were able to walk into Downing Street - bypassing the wrought-iron security gates installed to protect the Prime Minister from bombers, it has emerged.
Obadiah Marius and his girlfriend strolled into the street after wandering through a neighbouring Whitehall building unchallenged, a No 10 spokesman confirmed.
The incident occurred on Monday afternoon when Marius, 44, and his partner walked into 70 Whitehall, which houses the Cabinet Office, off the street.
How did these two get past the supposedly always manned security desk at the entrance to 70 Whitehall ?
Unchecked, the pair found themselves at the rear of the building which backs on to Downing Street.
The Designated / Protected Site boundary covers Downing Street roadway and pavements and the north side of the road i.e. the Cabinet Office and Numbers 9, 10. 11 and 12 Downing Street.
The route allowed them to circumnavigate the gates installed by Margaret Thatcher to thwart terrorists amid the IRA bombing campaign in the 1980s and they were then arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.
There are no warning signs around the perimeter of the Cabinet Office building at 70 Whitehall.
Marius, 44, appeared in court on Thursday but his girlfriend, identified only as Miss Smith, was released without charge."I got into an area I should never have been allowed into," Marius told the Sunday Express.
"It really is a disgrace. I think they are going to drop the charges."
[...]
Presumably, Obadiah Marius will be able to claim ignorance, under
the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
Section 128 subsection (4):
(4) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he did not know, and had no reasonable cause to suspect, that the site in relation to which the offence is alleged to have been committed was a designated site.
However, he has presumably suffered the indignities of an arrest, fingerprinting, DNA sampling, photography etc, all of which will be retained for ever, or at least until his 100th birthday.
The Sunday Express has another, fuller article online now.
Why are they wasting public money on a further Court appearance on August 10th ?
It will be an astonishing and extremely worrying legal precedent if Obidiah Marius is convicted, despite the utter lack of Section 128 warning signs on the Cabinet office building at 70 Whitehall, the implied permission given to him by the obviously mistaken security guard, and, the Statutory Defence of ignorance of being on a Designated/Protected site explicitly set out in in Section 128 subsection (4) (see main article above).
Why on earth did Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, presumably, give his consent for this prosecution, as laid down in Section 128 subsection (6) ?
If the Attorney General is simply going to rubber stamp prosecutions for this sort of minor mistake by a member of the public, to divert attention from the incompetence of the security authorities then he should resign.
Perhaps they are trying to set a precedent here, by taking this to court.
If the court convicts, it will kill the Defence of ignorance, as a legal entity.
Reading these background policy documents regarding warning signs and the Section 128(4) defence of ignorance
House of Lords discloses a couple of Home Office SOCPA Section 128 Designated / Protected Sites signage documents
makes it very difficult to see why Obadiah Marius has actually been charged and is facing trial.
Surely this prosecution must fail and "bring the offence into disrepute" as there were no warning signs whatsoever.
This man stole my wallet in june 9/2006 just walking into our office he spoke to me while stealing my wallet from my jacket hanging next to me. I lost £400-00 + cards personal items and the problems followed as i was going abroad in the following 2 days..
I have reported this to police again and expect him to be punished for what he`s done.
regards
Hasan Arikoglu London SW7
@ Hasan - you may be waiting a long time for any actual justice in your case.
After the prosecution seem to have dropped the SOCPA Section 128 criminal trespass prosecution, since the requisite warning signs were not in place at 70 Whitehall at the time of this incident. Prosecution under this offence also requires the consent of the Attorney-General, who, at the time had promised not to exercise her authority to do this sort of thing following the BAE / Saudi Arabia corruption prosecution suppression scandal.
The Daily Telegraph reported:
If he is not in prison for that offence, it seems unlikely that he will be properly punished for allegedly stealing your wallet.