Rights re: police searching a car...
Discussion
Hypothetical one this:
If I was driving along and was stopped by the BiB, and they want to search my car, would they need my permission to do so? Alternatively could they do this;
- just because they want to?
- if they suspect there might be something inside?
- only with a search warrant?
Just, as I say, hypothetical. After reading threads in this section I'm starting to become interested in what my rights are...
If I was driving along and was stopped by the BiB, and they want to search my car, would they need my permission to do so? Alternatively could they do this;
- just because they want to?
- if they suspect there might be something inside?
- only with a search warrant?
Just, as I say, hypothetical. After reading threads in this section I'm starting to become interested in what my rights are...
Generally speaking the police use two main pieces of legislation to search a car (or a person for that matter), they are s.1 of PACE and s.23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. There are many other bits of legislation that police use to search, but these are the main two.
The police can search a car/person if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that in it they might find: stolen items, offensive weapons, knives, drugs, anything that could be used to commit any theft, burglary, robbery or criminal damage (amongst other things).
In practice the threshold for "suspicion" is quite low.
They do not need permission to conduct a search and can use reasonable force if necessary, although what is "reasonable" depends on the circumstances.
They are required to explain to you why you are being searched, the law being used, and to provide you with a written record of the search if you want one (no one ever does).
Police powers of search are more wide ranging than this but s.1 PACE and s.23 MDA are the most common ones used. There's also s.18 PACE (search of property after arrest for indictable offence), s.32 PACE (search of person/property after arrest) and numerous other search powers under various acts but in practice they're quite similar.
The police can search a car/person if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that in it they might find: stolen items, offensive weapons, knives, drugs, anything that could be used to commit any theft, burglary, robbery or criminal damage (amongst other things).
In practice the threshold for "suspicion" is quite low.
They do not need permission to conduct a search and can use reasonable force if necessary, although what is "reasonable" depends on the circumstances.
They are required to explain to you why you are being searched, the law being used, and to provide you with a written record of the search if you want one (no one ever does).
Police powers of search are more wide ranging than this but s.1 PACE and s.23 MDA are the most common ones used. There's also s.18 PACE (search of property after arrest for indictable offence), s.32 PACE (search of person/property after arrest) and numerous other search powers under various acts but in practice they're quite similar.
Thanks everyone for your informative posts. I might have to have a read of the PACE documents. I'm starting to find this stuff more and more interesting
I did try searching, but couldn't find anything. The search function is also 'under maintenance' and doesn't appear to be working as well as it should.
I did try searching, but couldn't find anything. The search function is also 'under maintenance' and doesn't appear to be working as well as it should.
http://www.met.police.uk/stopandsearch/what_is.htm
You will find similar information on most police force websites.
You will find similar information on most police force websites.
DeKo said:
I've had my car searched thoroughly simply because I had a packet of rizla lying beside the handbrake, took absolutely ages, it's a joke.
And I had mine searched because I was a 'student' (aged 25) an driving 'late at night' (11.30pm).Edited by DeKo on Monday 27th September 03:23
The Police used to have to give you a reason for a vehicle search but nowerdays it's considered standard proceedure. I would advise that you should always be as cooperative as possible with any officer that has stopped you for whatever reason. After all they're just doing their job and for every car they do find drugs, stollen items, guns, explosives or anything else they must have stopped and seached several vehicles that the driver had nothing to hide and subsequently nothing was found.
Whatever you do don't moan about it. "Haven't you got any criminals to catch" or "Right you haven't found anything. Do you want to arrest me for wasting Police time?" probably won't go down too well. One day your house could be the one that gets burgled and the Police stop a car or van with your stuff in the back.
Would you rather the Police pull people over and find nothing than not pull over a car full of Heroine headed for a town near you?
Keep up the good work guys.
Whatever you do don't moan about it. "Haven't you got any criminals to catch" or "Right you haven't found anything. Do you want to arrest me for wasting Police time?" probably won't go down too well. One day your house could be the one that gets burgled and the Police stop a car or van with your stuff in the back.
Would you rather the Police pull people over and find nothing than not pull over a car full of Heroine headed for a town near you?
Keep up the good work guys.
Quite a few years ago when I was in the Suffolk Constabulary we used to do regular stop and searches on vehicles at certain places between certain hours. The theory was that the stop was informal and from then on depending on your instincts and other evidence you may see a search may be conducted. You would be amazed at the prosecution rate for stops between say the hours of 02.00 - 04.00. I reckon nearly 10% of cars stopped led to some offence.
Road2Ruin said:
Quite a few years ago when I was in the Suffolk Constabulary we used to do regular stop and searches on vehicles at certain places between certain hours. The theory was that the stop was informal and from then on depending on your instincts and other evidence you may see a search may be conducted. You would be amazed at the prosecution rate for stops between say the hours of 02.00 - 04.00. I reckon nearly 10% of cars stopped led to some offence.
How did that rate compare to stops between 04.00 and 02.00?When I was a 19/20 year old student I got my Golf GTi 16V searched a couple of times, because I had a fake cannabis leaf hanging from the rear view mirror for a bit of a laugh.
Both times the officers were actually quite aggressive with me despite me obviously being a cheerful, polite and well spoken young uni student rather than a chav unable to string a sentence together.
One occasion they virtually said 'you must have drugs in here somewhere and you will sit locked in the back of our car for as long as it takes us to find them', on another occasion the female officer asked me 'where I kept my needles in the car, because if she injured herself on one I would be in "serious trouble".
I have never had any drugs in any car that I have owned.
They seemed disappointed to not find anything which struck me as odd, you would have thought they would actually be pleased that I was squeaky clean and not a drug user.
I removed the offending leaf after that and was reduced to getting pulled for much more serious matters such as "it's late at night and this is a nice car".
Both times the officers were actually quite aggressive with me despite me obviously being a cheerful, polite and well spoken young uni student rather than a chav unable to string a sentence together.
One occasion they virtually said 'you must have drugs in here somewhere and you will sit locked in the back of our car for as long as it takes us to find them', on another occasion the female officer asked me 'where I kept my needles in the car, because if she injured herself on one I would be in "serious trouble".
I have never had any drugs in any car that I have owned.
They seemed disappointed to not find anything which struck me as odd, you would have thought they would actually be pleased that I was squeaky clean and not a drug user.
I removed the offending leaf after that and was reduced to getting pulled for much more serious matters such as "it's late at night and this is a nice car".
NinjaPower said:
When I was a 19/20 year old student I got my Golf GTi 16V searched a couple of times, because I had a fake cannabis leaf hanging from the rear view mirror for a bit of a laugh.
Both times the officers were actually quite aggressive with me despite me obviously being a cheerful, polite and well spoken young uni student rather than a chav unable to string a sentence together.
One occasion they virtually said 'you must have drugs in here somewhere and you will sit locked in the back of our car for as long as it takes us to find them', on another occasion the female officer asked me 'where I kept my needles in the car, because if she injured herself on one I would be in "serious trouble".
I have never had any drugs in any car that I have owned.
They seemed disappointed to not find anything which struck me as odd, you would have thought they would actually be pleased that I was squeaky clean and not a drug user.
I removed the offending leaf after that and was reduced to getting pulled for much more serious matters such as "it's late at night and this is a nice car".
had that the other day...flash car, reports of stolen flash cars in the area.... and its late at night....Both times the officers were actually quite aggressive with me despite me obviously being a cheerful, polite and well spoken young uni student rather than a chav unable to string a sentence together.
One occasion they virtually said 'you must have drugs in here somewhere and you will sit locked in the back of our car for as long as it takes us to find them', on another occasion the female officer asked me 'where I kept my needles in the car, because if she injured herself on one I would be in "serious trouble".
I have never had any drugs in any car that I have owned.
They seemed disappointed to not find anything which struck me as odd, you would have thought they would actually be pleased that I was squeaky clean and not a drug user.
I removed the offending leaf after that and was reduced to getting pulled for much more serious matters such as "it's late at night and this is a nice car".
caymanred said:
had that the other day...flash car, reports of stolen flash cars in the area.... and its late at night....
I see nothing wrong with this. And speaking as someone who owns a fairly twockable car, if not flash - Octavia vRS. And I work nights, so I've been stopped more than once. Pass the attitude test, and I'm on my way with a cheery "take care now". I'd rather they did stop cars like mine, and find them to be 100% legit, than not stop anyone and miss mine if it does get nicked.
PeteG said:
caymanred said:
had that the other day...flash car, reports of stolen flash cars in the area.... and its late at night....
I see nothing wrong with this. And speaking as someone who owns a fairly twockable car, if not flash - Octavia vRS. And I work nights, so I've been stopped more than once. Pass the attitude test, and I'm on my way with a cheery "take care now". I'd rather they did stop cars like mine, and find them to be 100% legit, than not stop anyone and miss mine if it does get nicked.
PeteG said:
caymanred said:
had that the other day...flash car, reports of stolen flash cars in the area.... and its late at night....
I see nothing wrong with this. And speaking as someone who owns a fairly twockable car, if not flash - Octavia vRS. And I work nights, so I've been stopped more than once. Pass the attitude test, and I'm on my way with a cheery "take care now". I'd rather they did stop cars like mine, and find them to be 100% legit, than not stop anyone and miss mine if it does get nicked.
When I replied 'student', the conversation changed somewhat and involved questions about drugs, followed by a very detailed search of my car...
I've had my car searched twice.
First time I was 17 and was pulled over for going too fast round an island, although I was within the speed limit. One of those 'new driver, looks like he's driving too fast, scare him out of speeding etc.' stops. He said I would receive a letter in the post of a court summons about the speeding, which would lead to a £400 fine, pulling figures and made up facts out of his head. The other officer continued to search my car, including the boot, and my college bag, emptying the contents into the boot. No explanation for this, then was sent on my way.
Second time was last year, just turned 18, I was sitting at the back of a pub in the beer garden which is next to the car park. The car park fills with police vehicles, everybody in the pub garden has their 'person' searched, followed by cars, with the aid of a sniffer dog. I was then arrested, wihout being read my rights and subjected to a strip search. It was then and only then explained to me (despite my asking on several occasions) that it was a suspected drugs trade from some of the people who were present at the pub.
The arresting female officer said that my car was very clean, suspiciously clean. Almost a compliment there.
First time I was 17 and was pulled over for going too fast round an island, although I was within the speed limit. One of those 'new driver, looks like he's driving too fast, scare him out of speeding etc.' stops. He said I would receive a letter in the post of a court summons about the speeding, which would lead to a £400 fine, pulling figures and made up facts out of his head. The other officer continued to search my car, including the boot, and my college bag, emptying the contents into the boot. No explanation for this, then was sent on my way.
Second time was last year, just turned 18, I was sitting at the back of a pub in the beer garden which is next to the car park. The car park fills with police vehicles, everybody in the pub garden has their 'person' searched, followed by cars, with the aid of a sniffer dog. I was then arrested, wihout being read my rights and subjected to a strip search. It was then and only then explained to me (despite my asking on several occasions) that it was a suspected drugs trade from some of the people who were present at the pub.
The arresting female officer said that my car was very clean, suspiciously clean. Almost a compliment there.
BDZ said:
Generally speaking the police use two main pieces of legislation to search a car (or a person for that matter), they are s.1 of PACE and s.23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. There are many other bits of legislation that police use to search, but these are the main two.
The police can search a car/person if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that in it they might find: stolen items, offensive weapons, knives, drugs, anything that could be used to commit any theft, burglary, robbery or criminal damage (amongst other things).
In practice the threshold for "suspicion" is quite low.
They do not need permission to conduct a search and can use reasonable force if necessary, although what is "reasonable" depends on the circumstances.
They are required to explain to you why you are being searched, the law being used, and to provide you with a written record of the search if you want one (no one ever does).
Police powers of search are more wide ranging than this but s.1 PACE and s.23 MDA are the most common ones used. There's also s.18 PACE (search of property after arrest for indictable offence), s.32 PACE (search of person/property after arrest) and numerous other search powers under various acts but in practice they're quite similar.
had this once... a tail light was out, got pulled (fair enough i spose)... didn't however appreciate being stopped for 40 minutes to have my car searched... apparently being 18 is suspicion enough The police can search a car/person if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that in it they might find: stolen items, offensive weapons, knives, drugs, anything that could be used to commit any theft, burglary, robbery or criminal damage (amongst other things).
In practice the threshold for "suspicion" is quite low.
They do not need permission to conduct a search and can use reasonable force if necessary, although what is "reasonable" depends on the circumstances.
They are required to explain to you why you are being searched, the law being used, and to provide you with a written record of the search if you want one (no one ever does).
Police powers of search are more wide ranging than this but s.1 PACE and s.23 MDA are the most common ones used. There's also s.18 PACE (search of property after arrest for indictable offence), s.32 PACE (search of person/property after arrest) and numerous other search powers under various acts but in practice they're quite similar.
PeteG said:
caymanred said:
had that the other day...flash car, reports of stolen flash cars in the area.... and its late at night....
I see nothing wrong with this. And speaking as someone who owns a fairly twockable car, if not flash - Octavia vRS. And I work nights, so I've been stopped more than once. Pass the attitude test, and I'm on my way with a cheery "take care now". I'd rather they did stop cars like mine, and find them to be 100% legit, than not stop anyone and miss mine if it does get nicked.
i just didn't appreciate the 45 minutes; mainly because it was december, freezing and i only had a t-shirt; and the wouldn't let me sit in either car (may have just come across 2 a
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