You are reading a single comment by @gbj_tester and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
To seize a mobile phone from someone's person the policeperson would have to have a right of search
In practice, if the phone is in your hand, the plod doesn't have to search you, he just has to ask you nicely to move away from the area for you own safety in the usual way, i.e. push you hard enough to make you drop your phone. Once it's on the floor (and quite likely you are too), the phone is just an abandoned piece of property in the street which he can pick up for safe keeping 😐
gbj_tester
hippy
That only applies to seizures from premises, not from the person. To seize a mobile phone from someone's person the policeperson would have to have a right of search, and as far as I'm aware the police don't have a power to search someone merely because they might be a witness or is in possession of something which might be evidence of an offence.
Not really my area of the law though, so I may be wrong about the extent of search powers.