FOI 432-24 Arrest Process

Enquiry Reference:  432 - 24                                                                                            

 

I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request.  Below is your request and our response.

 

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. 

Don't have enough time?

I get this excuse a lot. I always follow up with another foi request to get the written details of that decision. And this has been sent to 40 odd other police forces, so not going to look good if they can come up with answers in the time. 

After making enquires within the force our response is no information held – Police officers are required to follow the code of practice and are given training to go through the thought process when making an arrest, following the Law set out by PACE however we do not provide any further local instruction to police officers.

 

The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response you receive.

 

If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request, you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The APP College of Policing guidance states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced.

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Decision Maker