The long arm of the plod.....

kowalski:

iii) In England and Wales a constable may only arrest without warrant in accordance with the powers of arrest set out in section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984....."

SOCPA has put an end to that. Now as i understood it in the good old days you had to have actually carried out a arrestable offence. Now the bar has been lowered and now you can be arrested for a inditabel offence; the officer only has to suspect that you may cause one of the following before he takes you in.

Ie. The officer can arrest you if he suspects that you may do injury to others by your actions. Jumping a red light....?

Notes:

For constables, one or more of the following criteria now have to be fulfilled before an arrest can be made.

1. To enable the name of the person in question to be ascertained (in the case where the constable does not know, and cannot readily ascertain, the person's name, or has reasonable grounds for doubting whether a name given by the person as his name is his "real name")
   
2. As reason 1 but in respect of the person's address
   
3. To prevent the person in question:
   * Causing physical injury to themself or any other person
   * Suffering physical injury
   * Causing loss of or damage to property
   * Committing an offence against public decency
   * Causing an unlawful obstruction of the highway
   
4. To protect a child or other vulnerable person from the person being arrested
   
5. To allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person being arrested
   
6. To prevent any prosecution for the offence from being hindered by the disappearance of the person being arrested