Forgive us our trespasses. Trespassers will be prosecuted. These two phrases are known by every English person, but few will have any strong sense as to what exactly is meant by the ancient term that describes one of the oldest concepts in our domestic law. “Trespass” is a word both familiar and unfamiliar.
A trespass is a transgression: an unwanted incursion. At law it is usually an intrusion on someone else’s land, though there can also be trespass of other things, whenever one person has legal rights in respect of a thing and there has been an interference by a person who does not. When presented with a trespass, a court will provide the means of removing that interference and preventing it from recurring. Trespass law is, in practice, the right of the haves to exclude the have-nots.