Case Facts
The defendant, James Charles Bell, occupied a shop at 15–16 The Arcade, Broadmead, Bristol, trading as Bell's Music Shop. On 26 October 1959 at approximately 3:15 pm, a police constable observed a knife displayed in the shop window with a ticket behind it bearing the words "Ejector knife – 4s." The constable reported the matter, and upon being informed of this, the defendant remarked "Fair enough." He had earlier commented, "Why do manufacturers still bring them round for us to sell?" — a remark which established that he was aware the knife was a flick knife, even though that word did not appear on the ticket itself.
An information was preferred by Chief Inspector George Fisher alleging that the defendant had offered a flick knife for sale, contrary to s 1(1) Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959. That provision makes it an offence for any person to manufacture, sell, hire, offer for sale or hire, lend, or give to any other person any knife with a blade that opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, spring, or other device. The offence is punishable on summary conviction by up to three months' imprisonment, a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or both.
The Bristol justices dismissed the information, finding that the display of the knife in the shop window amounted to no more than an invitation to treat and could not constitute an offer for sale within the meaning of the statute. Chief Inspector Fisher then appealed to the Divisional Court by way of Case Stated.
Held
The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the decision of the Bristol justices. The court held that, in the absence of any definition in the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 extending the meaning of the phrase "offer for sale", that phrase must be given the meaning attributed to it in the ordinary law of contract. Under that law, the display of an article in a shop window with a price ticket is merely an invitation to treat and not an offer for sale capable of being accepted so as to form a binding contract. Accordingly, the defendant had not "offered" the knife for sale within the meaning of s 1(1) Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 and had committed no offence.
Ratio Decidendi
The ratio of the case rests on two closely related propositions.
First, where a criminal statute uses a term that also has a precise meaning in the civil law of contract, the courts will apply that civil law meaning unless Parliament has expressly provided otherwise. The word "offer" in s 1(1) Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 contained no extended statutory definition, and so the court applied the contractual meaning without modification.
Under established contract law principles, the display of goods in a shop window with a price ticket is an invitation to treat — an indication that the seller is willing to receive offers from prospective customers — rather than a binding offer. The authority for this proposition was cited with approval by the Court of Appeal in Pharmaceutical Society GB v Boots [1953]. In that case, the court confirmed that a shopkeeper who displays goods on shelves makes only an invitation to treat; the customer makes the offer at the point of sale, which the seller may then accept or refuse. The same analysis applies with equal force to a display in a shop window.
Second, the courts have no power to read words into a statute that Parliament has not chosen to include. Even where it may appear that Parliament inadvertently failed to prohibit certain conduct that it plainly intended to catch, it is not the function of the judiciary to supply that omission. The role of the court is strictly confined to interpreting the words actually enacted.
Obiter Dicta
The court acknowledged openly that the outcome might appear anomalous. It was observed that the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 as enacted prohibited a person from manufacturing, selling, hiring, offering for sale or hire, lending, or giving a flick knife — yet, on the strict contractual interpretation adopted, a shopkeeper could apparently display such a knife in a shop window without committing any offence under the Act.
The court noted that this might represent what the law terms a casus omissus — a situation that Parliament has failed to address in the legislation, leaving a gap in the statutory scheme. However, even if that were so, it was emphatically not the function of the court to fill that gap. This observation proved significant in practice: Parliament subsequently enacted the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1961 specifically to close the lacuna identified in this case by extending the prohibition to cover the exposure of such weapons for sale.