Section 108: Searches of persons answering to live link bail
521.Subsection (1) amends the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 by inserting new sections 54B and 54C giving police the power to search defendants attending the police station for the purposes of answering live link bail. Such searches would at present depend on defendants giving their consent to be searched, as they are not treated as in police detention when they enter a police station in answer to live link bail and the existing powers of search in that Act therefore do not apply to them.
522.Subsections (2) and (3) of new section 54B provide that a constable may seize and retain anything found on the defendant if the constable reasonably believes it may jeopardise the maintenance of order in the station, endanger anyone in the police station, or be evidence relating to an offence. New section 54B(4) provides that a constable may record any or all of the items seized and retained.
523.Subsections (5) and (6) of new section 54B provide that the constable searching must be of the same sex as the defendant and that the constable may not carry out an intimate search.
524.New section 54C(1) provides that anything seized and retained under new section 54B(2) must be returned to the defendant when he or she leaves the police station. However, this is subject to subsections (2) and (3) of new section 54C which provide that items can continue to be retained by a constable:
in order to establish the lawful owner of the item, where there are reasonable grounds for believing that it has been obtained in consequence of the commission of an offence, or
if the item is evidence of or relating to an offence, for use as evidence at trial for an offence or for forensic examination or investigation in connection with an offence unless a photograph or copy of the item would be sufficient for that purpose (new section 54C(4)).
525.New section 54C(5) preserves the power of a court to make an order under section 1 of the Police (Property) Act 1897.
526.Subsection (2) of section 108 inserts new subsection (1ZB) into section 46A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which extends the power of arrest for failure to answer to police bail to include defendants who attend the police station to answer live link bail but refuse to be searched under the new section 54B.
527.Subsection (3) of the section inserts a new paragraph 27A into Part 3 of Schedule 4 to the Police Reform Act 2002, to ensure that designated detention officers, as well as constables, can use the powers in new sections 54B and 54C to search and seize. Where a detention officer exercises the power to seize things found pursuant to a search the officer must deliver the things seized to a constable as soon as practicable and in any case before the person from whom it was seized leaves the police station.
