2024 27318 Re-arrests

REQUEST

What I’d like to see:

I'd like to see the instructions given to police officers regarding what procedures need to be followed when they make an arrest

- what they need to consider before making the arrest

- what they need to record in writing about these decisions

- what they need to say when making the arrest

And the same for custody sergeants, who must make their own independent decision before putting someone in the cells

- what do they need to consider before they can make this momentous decision

- what do they need to record in writing about this decision

Please do what you can in the available time for this request. Just get me whatever info you can in the time.

I am assuming that, given that this is such an important area because it deprives the public of liberty, the police would be given a simple checklist, a reminder of what to follow. Just as you would if you were operating a forklift truck, or if you were checking a forklift truck before you used it.

These will be digital and therefore subject to FOI

Of course, it is the independent decision of the arresting officer and of the custody officer whether an arrest and detention can take place - they can't delegate upwards and claim they were simply doing what they were told to do - see Alger v Metropolis. If they do, the arrest is automatically illegal.

If you simply refer me to PACE, then I will conclude that your police force does not have any of the most basic training and reminder / checklist provisions in place. If this were a Health and Safety matter, that would be taken as prima facie proof that the organisation was not doing enough to safeguard Health and Safety (which is what I suspect is happening with the police).

I'm sending this request to all police forces, so it will be interesting to see the differing procedures in place .

Requirement to help:

You will remember of course that it's your personal duty to help me achieve the information that I'm looking for. So feel free to suggest other ways that I can achieve the aim.

Why is this in the public interest?

I think that's obvious. The public don't want to have their liberty deprived unlawfully. It's also important for the police so that they leave an audit trail. It's also important for senior police so that they can check that correct procedures are being followed every time an arrest is carried out. I suspect that most police officers have hugely insignificant training on this most important area. Judges are required to correct the decisions made by other judges on whether an arrest is illegal (Metropolis v MR) - which kind of makes it impossible to expect a pc with a few months' experience to make these judgements.

RESPONSE