Court case(1845) 7 QB 742

The defendants, with the authority of the bridge company, fenced off part of the public footway on Hammersmith Bridge and put up seats there for spectators of a boat race on the Thames, charging for admission. The plaintiff, who claimed a right to use the footway, insisted on passing along it and climbed over the fence into the enclosure. Two policemen stationed there stopped him from going forward along the footway and told him he could go back the way he had come and cross the bridge by the other footpath. He refused to go back and remained where he was, within the enclosure, for about half an hour. He was later charged with an assault and sued the defendants for false imprisonment.

By a majority (Coleridge, Patteson and Williams JJ.; Lord Denman CJ dissenting) the Court of Queen's Bench held that there was no imprisonment. Coleridge J. explained that imprisonment is "a total restraint of the liberty of the person, for however short a time, and not a partial obstruction of his will, whatever inconvenience it may bring on him". "A prison may have its boundary large or narrow, visible and tangible, or, though real, still in the conception only; it may itself be moveable or fixed: but a boundary it must have; and that boundary the party imprisoned must be prevented from passing." Since the plaintiff was free to go back and use the other side of the bridge, he was obstructed, not imprisoned. Lord Denman CJ thought that being held in one place against one's will, by preventing passage in the direction one wishes to go, was imprisonment.