Your average Police Officer doesn't fully understand a citizens powers in these areas as its so complicated these days so I would highly recommend avoiding a so called "Citizens Arrest" at all costs.

Someone has already correctly pointed out that after arrest alot of Police paperwork is part of the arrse covering exercise to ensure codes of practice and the law was complied with. Failure to comply can result in Disciplinary action, reduction in rank, sacking and arrest. Ask yourself how many of those four options are open to you?

If I am not mistaken "Reasonable grounds to suspect" are only in a police officers powers under Section 24 of PACE so based on what you have just stated you would have fallen foul of the law. However wrong that may be.

If you are keen to know the full ins and outs look at the powers of "Persons other than a Constable" within the Police and Criminal Evidence act 1984 and not The 1967 Criminal Law Act (I believe you were quoting part of Section 3).

Surely the Police Officer's powers come about because the Police Officer is acting on witness statements rather than first hand knowledge. A victim doesn't 'suspect' that he has been assaulted, he knows (albeit he may not know the exact clause of which law under which subsection the assailant has committed an offence he knows enough to know some offence has been committed). Whereas a Police Officer coming onto the scene will hear two (possibly more), possibly conflicting, pieces of evidence and therefore can only suspect an offence has occurred as reported.

They used to say (in England) cops = suspect that a crime has been committed and suspect that the person committed the crime.

Citizens - know that a crime has been committed and suspect that the person committed the crime. The old common law powers were a lot more extensive than people realised, but let's face it, what knowledge of the law do many cops have? Did you see "The Force" last week? Inspector (I think) in charge of a murder investigation has to ask whether failing to report an accident is an offence, and doesn't mind doing this on camera. The general level of understanding seemed far from startling. I shudder to think what degree of sophistication is possessed generally.

A victim/witness states what they believe took place. The Police officer should identify any offences committed and either arrest (if practicable) or obtain a crime report to expedite the investigation of the offence.

A lawful arrest by a police constable requires a persons involvement, attempted involvement or suspected involvement in the commission of a criminal offence (summary/indictable/either way) and reasonable grounds for believing the persons arrest is necessary. So even if he hasn't witnessed it as soon as he suspects it has taken place he can arrest.

A person other than a constable may arrest anyone who is in the act of committing an "indictable" (Not summary offences) offence anyone whom he or she has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an indictable offence. I think this extends to having committed but will not cover about to commit. Also its important that the offence is Indictable (I remember that much) as people who have detained people for attempting to drink drive have fallen foul of the courts before today.

Like I said its a confusing part of the law and I wouldn't recommend Joe Public tangle themselves up in it until it is made more clear by a government that is Tougher on the offenders and not the apprehenders.

To Gobby Idiot - You are quick to have a pop at the inspector for confirming what he/she was unsure of. I'm willing to bet you would have been all over it like a tramp on chips if he had guessed and got it wrong. I think you should sit back and think about how vast the law is and how easy it might be to forget the little things that you don't deal with. Or do you honestly believe that all bobbies should be walking Police Blackstones Manuals. If in doubt - Ask!

You have actually just made a good point for this thread though. The original poster should not guess the legal position nor should he take our word for it. He should read up on it and ensure he understands what is proportionate, lawful, appropriate and necessary if he is thinking of chasing smelly chav feckers in future.

There was a thread on here not so long ago about a lad being arrested in the underground and the police threatening his GF with arrest for filming them. The outrage level was through the roof because the Police had acted above their powers. Perhaps it's always better to reassure oneself before one takes a course of action.
The Inspector's expertise was in homicide, he might be forgiven for not knowing aspects of traffic law, knowledge he was probably last called upon to use many years ago.

I think this one comes from N. Yorks around the time the Chief Constable admitted he hadn't enough police to do the job.
Chap hears noises, looks out to find there's two people in the shed/barn.
Rings police to be told they're sorry but they don't have any men in the area.
Don't worry says the owner 'I'll deal with it' And rings back a minute later with, 'It's OK, no hurry I've shot them'.
Before you know it there's cars, vans and a helicopter at the house the miscreants were caught. Chief policeperson to homeowner' I thought you said you shot them' to the response 'Ithought you said you hadn't any men'.

[quote="Closet_Jibber"]
For the wages we are entitled to expect a pretty significant degree of knowledge of the law. There were two cops in Glasgow recently who told shop staff that they hadn't the right to detain shoplifters. Now that goes beyond ignorance and raises issues about basic intelligence - at any point did they think, "Hundreds of shoplifters in the local courts every week, all the "victims" (in my view) of unlawful arrest, and not one of their highly experienced briefs made use of this? How likely is that? I may have erred".

I've you've been promoted twice, and passed two sittings of promotion exams, you really should be in complete command of the basics. How many other people would expect the thick end of fifty k while being hazy on the basics? How much disorder in this country has been caused by tens of thousands of cops being a bit hazy on i) the fundamental duty to maintain public order, and ii) the extensive common law powers which can be exercised by anyone?

No, sorry, I'm sick of paying for "hazy".

I thank you.

If you were having an operation to your heart surely you'd want a specialist heart surgeon to perform on you rather than a GP who knows a lot about a wide range of things?
If you get stopped by a traffic cop you can bet your bottom dollar he will be well up on all aspects of traffic law. If you get pulled in by the Vice Squad you can bet your bottom dollar they'll know all aspects of vice law. This is not a general police officer it is the head of a specialist unit who normally deals with very specific issues, he probably doesn't know much about commercial fraud either but that is what the fraud squad are for.
Law is an extremely complex subject, if you expected all officers to be fully conversant with every aspect of law then they would spend all their time in the classroom which would be no good to man nor beast.

[quote="Markintime"][quote="gobbyidiot"]
Or, alternatively, they could acquire the same continuous professional development obligations as everyone else and do a bit of reading in their own time. If you want "salaries" and "professional status" then you can't clock-watch, expect "ovies" for every extra minute, and expect to walk out of the door and never think about it until you come back. Show me a solicitor, architect, doctor, IT professional, teacher or lecturer who expects white collar wages and blue collar terms and conditions. In fact, compare and contrast the regime in the military with the expectations embodied in the "if you expect me to understand this send me on a two week course" attitude which (arguably) exists among some cops.

Oh dear.This will end in tears.

....or worse, loads of really ill-conceived arrests

Even in the Army there are areas of expertise. You don't expect an infanteer to be able to carry out EOD work you don't expect an EOD expert to be a great chef. Our knowledge is always honed by experience. We retain the knowledge to do our day to day duties and our knowledge of the commonplace we forget the more obscure. Most Police that I know do make every effort to keep abreast of changes in the law, particularly if they affect their area of expertise. If you have solicitors and barristers that specialise in one aspect of the law why is it not acceptable that the police should become more familiar with one area of the law than another?

The fact that he honestly thinks his solicitor knows all laws (And doesn't claim overtime), his doctor knows all medical conditions (and doesn't claim expenses) and teachers know their lessons long before they prepare their lesson means he's not really paying that much attention in life.

The law is so vast it IS unreasonable to expect every copper to know every law. Further to the point the law can over lap and different laws can apply to the same incident so working out which one is best to arrest for might be a pickle. This is why we have radio rooms, specialists and bosses to speak to when we arrive at the most unusual. Rather than thinking we know it all ( ) we usually detain people at the scene and if we're not sure, we ask.

However you who is worried about dodgy, wrongful arrests don't want this. You are a strange cat.

As for the wages - Dry your eyes princess. If you want to pay your local Police officer less, move to India.

Fixed that for you.

See this? This is me getting the fcuk out of here...

Not Plod-bashing here, but I find this & the response to it interesting. I didn't see the programme in question & this is a genuine request for information.

Was the failure to report thing about an RTA? If so I'd hardly expect that to be a complicated piece of law understood only by traffic police. You & I are expected to know it & would have the book thrown at us if we didn't; surely we should expect a relatively senior police officer to do so too?

After all we were calling for Harridan Harperson's head a week or so ago for her failure to stop/report...

More is coming back to me - our (I believe) Inspector on "The Force" also had to ask whether it was legal for them to put a charge to the murderer if the CPS didn't come through with the paperwork. FFS. The pay scale for an Inspector starts at £46,800.

www.police-information...sions.html


If we assume 2k for the council tax this makes a newly appointed single inspector richer than 98% of the UK population.

www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/

No. A job where you can make 48k plus without a degree and retire at 55 on (for present members) two thirds...................I expect some basic knowledge.

I wish I knew everything like you mate. By your reckoning English Teachers should throw away their dictionarys and GP's should throw away their medical journals.

Lets not mention mechanics getting rid of manuals and Platoon Commanders throwing away their Tams.

After all we pay all these people to know these things!

Yawn!

The English teachers could even throw away their dictionaries

Exactly!


I wish I meant that.