Police searching house when they arrest you - is this new?

[snadge]

As I have repeatedly posted you CANNOT be lawfully arrested simply for "looking at a copper the wrong way" or taking photographs of a tube station. You have now added "using a mobile phone suspiciously" - but what do you mean by "suspiciously"? - some circumstances may justify arrest on their own, but the majority would not.

The link you have provided may have demonstrated that an unlawful arrest has taken place or it may simply have omitted some other facts which would make the arrest lawful. None of us know. But it has NOT demonstrated that an arrest on those sparse grounds would routinely be lawful (which is the point I keep making and you keeping either missing or ignoring).

For you to be arrested under the Terrorism Act on these inadequate grounds would be unlawful. If an officer is willing to make an unlawful arrest under that act, then why piss about waiting for the circumstances to present themselves. If they are that desperate to search the blokes house, why not simply make up the grounds to arrest them immediately for a Misuse of Drugs Act offence?

You are continuing to mix up a number of aspects and using them to reach an unjustifiable conclusion.

I understand what you are saying DB and I think that you are missing my point.

Coppers arrest people on demos for nothing, hold 'em and ransack their houses...fact... I have been present in a friends house when she was arrested on a march for supposedly breach of the peace, coppers turned up and fucking ripped the house to bits, the same happened to 24 other people arrested for the same supposed "breach of the peace" wheras in reality they were just plucked off the street at random.

There have been documented reports of photographers arrested under the terrorism act and their houses searched.

In that link I provided ( and there are others of that ilk, just that the victim of abuse had the savvy and contacts to follow it through) he was arrested for the following.

# I went into the station without looking at the police officers at the entrance or by the gates, i.e. I was ‘avoiding them’
# two other men entered the station at about the same time as me
# I am wearing a jacket ‘too warm for the season’
# I am carrying a bulky rucksack
# I kept my rucksack with me at all times (I had it on my back)
# I looked at people coming on the platform
# I played with my mobile phone and then took a paper from inside my jacket

so you see my point, lazy coppers with fuck all to do, free house search and nick all his computer hardware.

Yes this was an unlawful arrest but by using the terrorism act, it is justified.

It is open to abuse, to the whims of the coppers on the street.

you're all bent.

 

[detective-boy]

Yes this was an unlawful arrest but by using the terrorism act, it is justified.

It ISN'T justified on those grounds alone - though you have now listed a number of different aspects of the suspicions not simply "looking at a copper the wrong way" or "using a mobile phone suspiciously". There are suggestions in the story to other aspects of the suspicion as well (which may well not have been known to the person at the time) - previous incidents; possibly sight of wiring at some point, ... whatever

If it isn't justified it IS unlawful, under the Terrorism Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act or the bloody Badgers Act. The LAW does not provide justification for an unlawful arrest.

There is an argument to be had that the lawful powers in the Terrorism Act are wider / easier to achieve / cover a very wide range of "normal" activity - and I may well agree with to some extent - but that is a different argument.

And not all police officers are bent, any more than all muggers / drug dealers are scum or all protesters are violent.

Some are. Some probably always will be. But not all. And, actually, not many.

 

[TAE]

The cops can and do claim anything they like whether it is true or not. How are you going to prove that a cop did not in fact have a certain suspicion? If merely claiming to have suspicions allows them to get away with ransacking someone's house then that simply is not good enough in a free democratic society.

 

[snadge]

It ISN'T justified on those grounds alone - though you have now listed a number of different aspects of the suspicions not simply "looking at a copper the wrong way" or "using a mobile phone suspiciously". There are suggestions in the story to other aspects of the suspicion as well (which may well not have been known to the person at the time) - previous incidents; possibly sight of wiring at some point, ... whatever

If it isn't justified it IS unlawful, under the Terrorism Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act or the bloody Badgers Act. The LAW does not provide justification for an unlawful arrest.

There is an argument to be had that the lawful powers in the Terrorism Act are wider / easier to achieve / cover a very wide range of "normal" activity - and I may well agree with to some extent - but that is a different argument.

And not all police officers are bent, any more than all muggers / drug dealers are scum or all protesters are violent.

Some are. Some probably always will be. But not all. And, actually, not many.

The reasons he was arrested are stated plain enough, the wires in his bag was added as an afterthought, they weren't on show so to use that as a reason for arrest is baloney.

Also to use previous as an excuse is also baloney as that was assertained after the initial arrest.

He was lifted plain and simple by bent coppers who used the full extent of their powers under the terrorism act to ransack his house and "steal" his electrical equipment.

I have mentioned steal as that is what it is to me, they kept his gear even after the fact came out they had cocked up, depriving him of the use of them to his detriment.

Every copper I have had dealings with has fucking been bent, I knew one years ago that chucked in the towl due to his disgust at how our rights had been eroded after the CJA and the scum ( his words) that he had as workmates.

It is a proffesion that attracts the devious and corrupt power crazed cunts that really should be head read.


I have proudly managed to get one copper chucked off the force and prosecuted for his lies and deciet, and another 7 disciplined for harrasing me about the one that was collared


And I would willingly do it again even though that episode came with a price, getting stopped on average 3 times a week, getting my car searched at the roadside, myself getting searched, making me late for appointments, disrupting my life for about a year.

bent cunts.

 

[detective-boy]

If merely claiming to have suspicions allows them to get away with ransacking someone's house then that simply is not good enough in a free democratic society.

So what would be "good enough"? Or do you not think there should be any power to search (a.k.a. "ransack") someone's house?

 

[detective-boy]

...they kept his gear even after the fact came out they had cocked up, depriving him of the use of them to his detriment.

If that is what happened then I cannot see any way they will be able to justify keeping the equipment. If they do, then it will be another set of grounds on which to sue.

But, I repeat again, no matter how bad or good this particular instance was, the law does NOT permit this to happen. If it has happened in the way described then it is unlawful.

 

[TAE]

Prevention is better than cure.

An independent person testing whether the police officer has reasonable grounds for the claimed suspicions would seem an absolute minimum requirement to me.

Most people are law abiding and that includes the police, but laws are made to protect us from those who are not law abiding and that also includes the police.

Hence we need protection from those cops who would abuse the extensive powers they are given.

 

[detective-boy]

Prevention is better than cure.

An independent person testing whether the police officer has reasonable grounds for the claimed suspicions would seem an absolute minimum requirement to me.

Most people are law abiding and that includes the police, but laws are made to protect us from those who are not law abiding and that also includes the police.

Hence we need protection from those cops who would abuse the extensive powers they are given.

I have no argument with any of that.

As I have already posted, there are ways of putting in place a structure which would replace the Inspector authorising a search with a Magistrate authorising a search - there are practical and cost issues but not insurmountable. If this were done, would you be happy with the same degree of evidence / information being sufficient for the grant of a warrant as now?

But what about the search powers which are entirely unauthorised (e.g. s.18(4) and s.32 of PACE). Would you be content to leave them with the individual officer?

Are you content to leave arrest powers with the individual officer? Or are you saying all arrests must always be on warrant?

Would you

 

[Azrael]

I understand your point entirely.

But application of the rule the oyther way round does exactly the same. It protects people it knows to be guilty (or, at least, people who have a case to answer) "for the greater good". If we had a hard and fast exclusuionary rule the lawyers would make an absolute mint finding the tiniest procedural error in an effort to get some aspect of the investigation ruled illegal (see speedings Mr Loophole, where he does exactly this).

Whilst the public may agree in significant numbers with evidence being excluded and possible murderers walking free on the basis of malicious bending of the rules (which happens now, to be honest - any malicious rule bending is very likely to result in evidence being excluded), do you think they want that to happen due to inadvertent, mistaken or entirely technical rule-bending?

I don't. I think our current law probably has the best of both worlds. It relies on the Judges to strike a balance in an individual case in a just way ... but that is what they are there for and if we cannot trust them to do that then we may as well all give up.

There was a longer post I edited down to save on time, but made my position clearer. I don't want the exclusionary rule made tighter: I oppose having any rule that knowningly excludes reliable evidence.

The courts should simply test reliability. If confessions etc are unreliable then of course they should be tossed out. What I'm against is excluding solid evidence obtained unlawfully in order to deter unlawful searches. There's no reason the public should pay for an individual officer's wrongdoing. Vigourously prosecuting officers for any genuinely malicious search would surely be deterrence enough.

In the USA the exclusionary rule's become a regular judicial game. When the Supreme Court recently abolished its worst excesses by ruling it didn't apply in cases of inadvertant error (ie, getting the wrong address on a warrant) defence lawyers were up in arms. Says a lot for their priorities. Often US defence counsel and police are tacitly complicit: bad officers keep their jobs and the defence win the case. The public looses out.

Not what I want here.

 

[TAE]

As I have said before, I generally prefer to leave the exact details to the relevant experts.

That does not stop me from saying that I am very unhappy about the extensive powers the police now seem to have. Someone being stopped & arrested and having their home searched for no good reason is completely unacceptable, yet it is apparently happening.

 

[Azrael]

I am sure the CPS could be made a lot less bureaucratic and a lot swifter in it's decision making without the need to remove it altogether. But I think we agree "something" needs to be done. I particulary agree with your concerns over the CPS's (somewhat arbitrary) requirement that the police to have an investigation "ready to go" on a first hearing. This was brought in in an (entirely laudable) attempt to reduce the use of "holding charges". But, as usual, one step forward has managed to simultaneously include two steps back. Unfortunately I have also seen evidence that this requirement is now being used as an excuse for abandoning prosecutions altogether, by allowing them to drag on so long that, eventually, they can be written off as any proceedings would now be considered an "abuse of process".

The CPS could perhaps be reformed, or, given it's less-than-high levels of confidence amongst police and public, replaced. If the ethos was changed to a pragmatic one that did everything possible to get reliable cases to court that would, I agree, be a very different beast. Read a disturbing stat in today's Torygraph: 1/3 of street robbers are nicked over 50 times before then end up in gaol. Even if that's only half-true it makes the law a joke for the criminal.

As for the Continental system of examining Magistrates, there is a very significant downside there in that the Magistrate (part of the judiciary) becomes, in effect, the senior investigating officer, directing the investigation in a very hands-on way. I personally think this blurs the boundaries between the job of the police (to find the evidence); the prosecutor (to assess and present the evidence on appropriate and justifiable charges) and the Courts (to hear, test and decide guilt, based upon the evidence). I would far rather keep our current clear distinctions and find ways of better managing the boundaries and handovers than blurring the boundaries like that.

While I don't have quite the romantic attachment to the common law some others enjoy, I do prefer an adversarial system: but the Procurator Fiscal is a curious mix of the two that seems to work. The PF is defined as a prosecutor but conducts investigations like an investigating magistrate. (He or she is also a coroner for some strange reason best known to the Scots.) It's perhaps a more honest reflection of the Continental system.

Speaking of investigating magistrates, their function is often confused in this country. Like most I thought they conducted the trial, but they're more akin to a particularly impartial prosecutor: they present their evidence to another judge for the actual trial. It's argued that they're fairer on poor defendants because they have an equal duty to look for exculpatory evidence, and take submissions from both sides of a case.

Of couse it doesn't work that well in practice and there's calls to have them replaced in France. But they have been subjected to a fair bit of propaganda from Rumpoles this side of the Channel.

 

[detective-boy]

Read a disturbing stat in today's Torygraph: 1/3 of street robbers are nicked over 50 times before then end up in gaol. Even if that's only half-true it makes the law a joke for the criminal.

Sadly that is nothing new, nothing to do with the CPS ... and is behind many of the frustrations expressed by police officers.

It arises from the opposite side of the debate - be nice to the poor children - give them lots of chances, make the Courts nice unscary places, don't put them in detention unless the world is about to end ... This is based on a wolly-headed reading of the statistics which show that the majority of young offenders (and that is what we are mainly dealing with here and in much volume crime) do not re-offend. What is never noticed is that once the few that do have re-offended a coupld of times they are highly unlikely ever to be dissuaded from a life of crime without some serious, attention grabbing action ... like detention.

Whilst I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with giving young offenders a few chances, there comes a time when they need to be shown that the system is growing tired of them and that last time, when we said we don't expect to see you in Court again or we'll be very cross, we actually meant it. Repeated non-custodial disposals encourage kids to believe that they are untouchable. And what we now see is what you get when they think that.

The PF is defined as a prosecutor but conducts investigations like an investigating magistrate.

...

Speaking of investigating magistrates ... they're more akin to a particularly impartial prosecutor: they present their evidence to another judge for the actual trial.

I see the PF as a blend of the police and the CPS - both aspects working together to present the case to the impartial court. I think the CPS is steadily becoming more involved in investigations and decision making (recently they have taken on a pre-charge role in every case) and I think we are, by degrees, moving towards the PF system.

I would certainly prefer that to the continental system. Although I was aware that the Investigating Magistrate then presented the case to another court for trial, I would rather see the line drawn between prosecutor and judiciary rather than somewhere within the ranks of the judiciary.

 

[Azrael]

Prevention is better than cure.

An independent person testing whether the police officer has reasonable grounds for the claimed suspicions would seem an absolute minimum requirement to me.

Most people are law abiding and that includes the police, but laws are made to protect us from those who are not law abiding and that also includes the police.

Hence we need protection from those cops who would abuse the extensive powers they are given.

It used to be a guiding principle that police, being "citizens in uniform" (well I said it was a principle ), enjoyed no more powers than were, theoretically, available to the general public. As late as the early 20th century people were still swearing-out their own arrest and search warrants.

There's a lot to recommend the principle, provided some practicalities are met.

For example I think arrests should require a warrant unless the crime happens in sight of a police officer, or if there's an immediate threat to public, property or evidence.

I'm not talking about some scumbag rucking in the middle of the street: obviously coppers aren't going to apply for a warrant while he kicks the shit out of his victim. But I am talking about people nicked after the fact. I was surprised when one officer told me many people are told to surrender themselves to their local nick to be arrested, and routinely bring a solicitor along. Leaving aside the question of whether they need to be arrested at all (if they're co-operating what purpose the arrest, other to trigger the growing powers the action carries?) a warrant could be obtained in those circumstances.

If more civil libertarians were willing to be firm with proven criminals, there'd be greater public support for fairness along the way.

 

[detective-boy]

That does not stop me from saying that I am very unhappy about the extensive powers the police now seem to have. Someone being stopped & arrested and having their home searched for no good reason is completely unacceptable, yet it is apparently happening.

I am saying to you that the system is nowhere near as bad as you say it is.

People are not routinely "having their home searched for no good reason". There may be occasional examples of that happening, but the vast majority of searches are properly authorised under the provisions which exist, on perfectly proper and justifiable grounds.

If there were lots of examples such as the one linked to, do you not think we would be hearing about them? It appears it led to the station being closed and evacuated. Do you think that is happening regularly? Do you really think that would have been done just on the basis of someone looking a bit funny at a copper or something?

 

[detective-boy]

For example I think arrests should require a warrant unless the crime happens in sight of a police officer, or if there's an immediate threat to public, property or evidence.

Whilst I understand the logic of this suggestion, I'm not sure how you square it with your desire to reduce the bureaucracy / delays of the CPS. It sounds like it is just going to lengthen the process.

I was surprised when one officer told me many people are told to surrender themselves to their local nick to be arrested, and routinely bring a solicitor along. Leaving aside the question of whether they need to be arrested at all (if they're co-operating what purpose the arrest, other to trigger the growing powers the action carries?) a warrant could be obtained in those circumstances.

The arrest is made because the rules introduced for the protection of the suspect require an arrest to be made. The arrest also does trigger various powers but most, if not all, of them would not be in issue with a suspect who was co-operating anyway. The police would be more than happy in some / many cases for there to be no actual arrest, if it were not for the procedural requirement for one.

Your anecdote does also rather give a somewhat different slant on how the police use their powers than that which has been suggested earlier in the thread ... sounds rather more like the situation I have been attempting to convince people of ...

If more civil libertarians were willing to be firm with proven criminals, there'd be greater public support for fairness along the way.

Ain't that the truth!

There are a significant number of things which have been introduced which have eroded liberties for us all because we have been less than robust in dealing with those who commit offences.

 

[Azrael]

Sadly that is nothing new, nothing to do with the CPS ... and is behind many of the frustrations expressed by police officers.

It arises from the opposite side of the debate - be nice to the poor children - give them lots of chances, make the Courts nice unscary places, don't put them in detention unless the world is about to end ... This is based on a wolly-headed reading of the statistics which show that the majority of young offenders (and that is what we are mainly dealing with here and in much volume crime) do not re-offend. What is never noticed is that once the few that do have re-offended a coupld of times they are highly unlikely ever to be dissuaded from a life of crime without some serious, attention grabbing action ... like detention.

Whilst I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with giving young offenders a few chances, there comes a time when they need to be shown that the system is growing tired of them and that last time, when we said we don't expect to see you in Court again or we'll be very cross, we actually meant it. Repeated non-custodial disposals encourage kids to believe that they are untouchable. And what we now see is what you get when they think that.

I couldn't agree more. I see a direct link between weakness in dealing with proven criminals and the introduction of dangerous authoritarian powers: the less criminals are seen to fear the law, the more people will be persuaded to abandon essential liberties in a desperate attempt to feel safe again.

Problem is that a swathe of the legal profession have become wedded to some of the lazier left-wing arguments about criminals. (Namely that criminals aren't truly responsible for their actions because enviroment, and not personal choice, is predominately to blame for their crime.) I've sat open-mouthed in lectures by very senior barristers who genuinely believe we just need to give hoodies more hugs.

Courts should not be brutal places but they should be intimidating. They should make it clear to a convicted criminal that they have done wrong and deserve to be punished for it. They should produce a punishment the convict finds unpleasant and does not wish to be repeated. This should happen first time round and get progressively worse for each subsequent offence.

It should also be coupled with an investigation as to why they commited the crime, enforced education, skills training, efforts to tackle family problems etc. But none of that should be used to excuse a crime.

Ultimately that would be a lot kinder than nicking someone 50 times and allowing their recidivism to get progressively worse.

 

[Azrael]

Whilst I understand the logic of this suggestion, I'm not sure how you square it with your desire to reduce the bureaucracy / delays of the CPS. It sounds like it is just going to lengthen the process.

Well you supported PACE because it wasn't meaningless bureaucracy, and I'm just going on the same logic. If other forms of bureaucracy were cut, adjoining-or-local magistrates courts built, and the process for obtaining a warrant simplified, it could be done without being burdomesome. The seriousness of taking away someone's liberty, even for a short time, would in my mind more than justify restrictions provided they didn't unreasonably delay the police, or endanger the public. (And a warrant in these circumstances would have the opposite effect.)

Think of it this way, if more arrests were with warrants the complaints would be directed elsewhere.

The arrest is made because the rules introduced for the protection of the suspect require an arrest to be made. The arrest also does trigger various powers but most, if not all, of them would not be in issue with a suspect who was co-operating anyway. The police would be more than happy in some / many cases for there to be no actual arrest, if it were not for the procedural requirement for one.

This is exactly what I mean when I say PACE has ended up taking rights as well as introducing them! I imagine this has something to do with ending that old fiction of people "helping the police with their enquiries": but having them nicked seems a strange way to protect their liberties.

Your anecdote does also rather give a somewhat different slant on how the police use their powers than that which has been suggested earlier in the thread ... sounds rather more like the situation I have been attempting to convince people of ...

I've been on quite a few protests, and seen the police act none too gently or fairly, but I recognise that protests are unusual situtions many police don't much like dealing with. Trouble is high profile actions like that, or the string of dodgy anti-terrorism arrests, are seen as representative. As you'll probably agree, it's in the police's interest to have them stop as much as anyone's.

(For example, when a I read about a protest the teenage Mark Steel attended that was violently broken up at a minister's say-so, I was extremely annoyed. Not only because it was unjust, which it was, but because it confirmed his every prejudice and turned him against the police for life. Hang the rights and wrongs of what he thought, it was counter-productive to public order. Many other conservatives miss this perfectly sensible point in their rush to give the "soap-dodgers what's coming to them".)

 

[TAE]

People are not routinely "having their home searched for no good reason".

So what? People are not routinely mugged either. If it happens once, that is once too often.

Besides, neither you nor I have any idea how often it is happening. I never read about what happened to shagnasty in the newspaper. How many cases like this are there? We don't know.

 

[detective-boy]

Ultimately that would be a lot kinder than nicking someone 50 times and allowing their recidivism to get progressively worse.

And eventually ending up with them doing something really serious and getting a huge sentence.

As long ago as 1984 or 1985 I dealt with two young burglars in Hammersmith. They were twin brothers and had been burgling since they were about 10. I dealt with them when they were about sixteen. They had committed an aggravated burglary (broke into an elderly womans flat with knives during the early hours and when she disturbed them, threatened her and tied her up) and had been nicked by patrolling officers with knives, stolen property, etc. on them. They said nothing (in fact, one of them spat at me in interview with solicitor and social worker present) but were charged and appeared at juvenile court (as it was then).

They had each got about twenty or thirty convictions, many with several offences. Between them I calculated they had be convicted opf and sentenced for about 250 burglaries. BY the usual "you get nicked for 10%" rule that meant they had committed about 2,500. They had never been given a custodial sentence despite breaching probation order after community service after conditional discharge and even afteer suspended sentence.

I managed to keep them in custody and they were sent to the Crown Court because of the seriousness of the offence. They had no option to plead guilty and they were eventually sentenced three days after their seventeenth birthday (I think the Judge strung it out a bit deliberately, as it increased his powers). They each got seven years - their very first custodial sentence.

Never mind all their victims - exactly what favours did the system do for them? Maybe, just maybe, if after their third or fourth conviction they had started getting custodial sentences, starting at 14 days or something and steadily increasing if they didn't learn, they would have avoided their life of crime. If they hadn't, at least some of their victims would have been spared being victimised.

 

[detective-boy]

...provided they didn't unreasonably delay the police, or endanger the public.

...

I imagine this has something to do with ending that old fiction of people "helping the police with their enquiries

....

Many other conservatives miss this perfectly sensible point in their rush to give the "soap-dodgers what's coming to them".

I would not have any difficulty with any level of accountability, provided it was workable, nor would most police officers. Accountability is something that is second nature (i know some posters do not believe this, but it is). Practicality is usually the sticking point - many politicians / commentators / members of the public simply do not understand what is and isn't possible and what problems may arise if it is not possible to act swiftly and decisively.

You are right in thinking that the PACE requirement to exercise a power of arrest if someone voluntarily at a station would be arrested if they changed their minds and attempted to leave was to end the "helping with enquiries" farce.

And I (and, I suspect, most police officers) totally agree with your point that bad experiences taint people's views on the police, the Courts and the Criminal Justice System generally. It is the main reason I do what I do here, trying to demonstrate that not all bad experiences are necessarily what they seem and that they are certainly not the norm (albeit they are far more common than I would like to see). IT is also one of the major concerns the police service has about CSO's - if they do al the nice having a cup of tea, non-confrontational stuff how are the public going to feel about a police service which only ever deals with them in conforntation?

 

[detective-boy]

Besides, neither you nor I have any idea how often it is happening.

I know that it was anything but common four years ago when I left the service. Because I used to exercise the powers, as both an investigator requesting authorisations and as an Inspector giving them. Things may have changed since but I still have significant contact with the police service and I have seen and heard nothing to suggest that they have.

 

[TAE]

Excuse me if I don't take your word for it - you don't seem to be as aware of what is going on as you would like to think.

 

[detective-boy]

Excuse me if I don't take your word for it - you don't seem to be as aware of what is going on as you would like to think.

And your better source of information is ...

 

[snadge]

And your better source of information is ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3290383.stm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1829289,00.html


a quick google eh!

 

[snadge]

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/02/internet_exclus.html


http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2394/Operation_Terrorism_Act


there seems to be hundreds of people arrested using this act, and hundreds later found innocent

 

[snadge]

Even using entrapement

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5176522.stm

 

[TAE]

Nice one snadge - and I believe the british journal of photography has already been mentioned in this thread as well, which a photographer friend of mine confirmed was full of stories about police harassment.

This is all quite irrelevant to D.B.'s attempted slight of hand though, because I had stated that we cannot know for sure how often this is actually happening. For him to respond that I do not have any reliable sources is hillarious.

 

[snadge]

Nice one snadge - and I believe the british journal of photography has already been mentioned in this thread as well, which a photographer friend of mine confirmed was full of stories about police harassment.

This is all quite irrelevant to D.B.'s attempted slight of hand though, because I had stated that we cannot know for sure how often this is actually happening. For him to respond that I do not have any reliable sources is hillarious.

One thing that I do know is that it is being abused far too much, searching around for some info I am amazed at some of the petty things that the coppers use as an excuse to impose this act, of course it's all done in the interest of public safety.

my arse, bust a hippy and search their house, bust a photographer and search their house.

There are loads of people who post on www.dpreview.com ( camera forums) who tell of their experiences at the hands of the law.

bent bastards.

 

[detective-boy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3290383.stm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1829289,00.html

So your authorative sources of information for how the police use their powers of search under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act are ... two newspaper articles about the exercise of powers of arrest under the Terrorism Act and the subsequent conviction rates ...

Have you done a course on being stupid ...

 

[TAE]

Read your own post #104 before calling someone stupid for mentioning arrests under anti-terror legislation.