Chapter 1: Emergency place of safety
Pre-existing law
90.Prior to implementation of this Act, where a child aged eight or over is behaving (or is likely to behave) in a way that is causing or risks causing significant harm to another person, a police constable may be able to arrest the child on suspicion that the child has committed (or is committing) an offence.(47) As a person who is arrested outwith a police station must be taken to a police station as quickly as reasonably practicable after the arrest(48), such an arrest would also have the immediate effect of removing the child to a place of safety.(49)
47
Section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016.
48
Section 4 of that Act.
49
Part 1 of that Act also sets out what happens to an arrested person after this point.
