In a weekly column, solicitor Juliet Phillips-James casts QWhat

Her expert eye over a range of legal matters and urges anyone with any questions or problems to come forward for help. is meant by necessity of arrest?

AUnder the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and Code G of the PACE Code of Conduct, a Police Constable has a duty to consider whether an arrest is duly necessary and if objectives can be met by other, less intrusive means e.g. Voluntary Interview. A constable can arrest someone without an arrest warrant in four instances, these are:

(a) anyone who is about to commit an offence; (b) anyone who is in the act of committing an offence;

(c) anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be about to commit an offence;

(d) anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an offence. The power of arrest is only exercisable, if the Constable has reasonable grounds, under the PACE Act 1984, Section 24(5), to suspect that it is necessary to arrest the person in question. The reasons are:

(a)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);

(b) correspondingly as regards the person’s address;

(c) to prevent the person in question:

(i) causing physical injury to himself or any other person;

(ii) suffering physical injury;

(iii) causing loss of or damage to property;

(iv) committing an offence against public decency or

(v) causing an unlawful obstruction of the highway;

(d) to protect a child or other vulnerable person from the person in question;

(e) to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person in question;

(f)to prevent any prosecution for the offence from being hindered by the disappearance of the person in question.