Nick Andrews www.police-recruitment.co.uk
There is no denying the fact that our world has changed tremendously over the past few decades. Only as far back as the 1970’s or early 80’s, if we ever espied anyone committing an offence, we could apprehend them by way of carrying out a citizen’s arrest, drag them along to the nearest police station, and lap up all of the praise from the officers present as they congratulated you for undertaking what people commonly believed to be their standard duty as an upstanding member of British society.
In actual fact, I am able to personally relate to such an incident and around the same time. When I was 16, I caught three burglars within my home and gave chase to them. Unfortunately, two managed to get away with a considerable amount of my Mother’s jewellery, but I caught hold of one and managed to detain him within the house, under a citizen’s arrest, until the local police were able to come and collect him. I was very proud of my actions here and actually received a letter of commendation from the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police.
However, do you know what? I think I would definitely think twice about carrying out any form of citizen’s arrest nowadays. Having studied law since, I have seen the extent of human rights laws that are firmly in place to protect the rights of the law breakers. If I were to analyse my actions from over 20 years ago, I am aware of the fact that I could have been charged with false imprisonment or some other mamby-pamby human rights law that many people believe are ill-placed to protect the criminals.
As the law currently stands, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), a person is entitled to undertake a citizen’s arrest if the defendant being apprehended is suspected of having committed an indictable offence. In other words, a more serious crime that could actually end up being referred to the Crown Court, rather than what is known as a ‘summary’ offence which would only be dealt with through a Magistrates’ Court.
Now, this is where things are bound to become a little grey for the average member of public. Most people believe that they are able to carry out a citizen’s arrest whenever they spot someone committing any type of unlawful behaviour, however, this is far from the case, and if you end up getting things wrong (which is highly likely), you run the risk of having action brought against you for wrongful arrest.
So the most prudent advice here would be to definitely steer well clear of making a citizen’s arrest in the first instance. Not only are there statutory laws in place to dictate the circumstances in which such an apprehension can be made, but PACE actually goes much further in laying down exactly how you can make that arrest in a lawful manner.
We also need to seriously think about the news stories of so called ‘have a go heroes’ that attempt to deal with unlawful behaviour, but actually end up becoming a victim themselves. This may well be when they are literally stabbed to death by the perpetrator of the crime that they were attempting to apprehend. With this in mind, if you would consider yourself to be the type of individual who would definitely try to carry out a citizen’s arrest on a person seen to be committing a crime – do take heed from this article and think again!
Our society has changed exponentially over the past 30 or 40 years and it is an unfortunate fact that we no longer live in a country that is safe. Moreover, human rights laws often appear to be more heavily stacked in the favour of the criminal, rather than the upstanding member of the community who might be trying to address the growing problem of crime in their area. Leave policing to the right people; by all means report the crime at the first available opportunity, but never attempt to make any form of citizen’s arrest yourself – it is very unlikely that you will be thanked for this and you will run the risk of serious bodily harm.
