(1)Part 3 of the Police Act 1997 (c. 50) (authorisation of action in respect of property) is amended as follows.
(2)In section 93 (authorisation to interfere with property etc.)—
(a)in subsection (1B), after “customs officer” there is inserted “ or an officer of the Office of Fair Trading ”;
(b)after subsection (2A) there is inserted—
“(2AA)Where the authorising officer is the chairman of the Office of Fair Trading, the only purpose falling within subsection (2)(a) is the purpose of preventing or detecting an offence under section 188 of the Enterprise Act 2002.”;
(c)in subsection (3), after paragraph (d) there is inserted “, or
(e)if the authorising officer is within subsection (5)(i), by an officer of the Office of Fair Trading.”;
(d)in subsection (5), after paragraph (h) there is inserted “; or
(i)the chairman of the Office of Fair Trading.”
(3)In section 94 (authorisation given in absence of authorising officer) in subsection (2), after paragraph (f) there is inserted—
“(g)where the authorising officer is within paragraph (i) of that subsection, by an officer of the Office of Fair Trading designated by it for the purposes of this section.”
Textual Amendments applied to the whole legislation
F1Act: for the words "solicitor of the Supreme Court of Northern Ireland" wherever they occur there is substituted (prosp.) the words "solicitor of the Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland" by virtue of Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (c. 4), ss. 59, 148(1), Sch. 11 para. 5 [Editorial Note: this amendment will be carried through into the text of the Act at the same time as any other effects on the Act for the year in which the relevant commencement order (or first such order) is made]