What constitutes trespass against a landowner?
The public have a legal right to ‘pass and repass’ along the way. They may stop briefly to rest or admire the view providing they remain within the legal boundaries of the path and do not cause an obstruction. A person who strays from the legal line of the path or uses it for purposes other than to ‘pass and repass’ or if the public are on private land off a recorded Public Right of Way or where (or when) access arrangements do not apply, commits trespass against the landowner. In most cases the act of trespass against a landowner is a civil rather than a criminal offence. As such notices stating ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ are generally meaningless. However, a landowner could claim this as trespass. As such a landowner may request the trespasser leave their land. In the first instance this should be in the form of a firm, but polite, verbal request and, as most people do not enter land with the intent of causing a nuisance, this often suffices. However, a landowner may use reason
