Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005

Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005

2005 CHAPTER 15

The Act

Commentary on Sections

Part 3: Police powers etc.

Section 112: Power to direct a person to leave a place

238. This section provides for a new offence of failing to obey a police direction to leave an exclusion area. It applies to those offenders, both adults and juveniles, who have had an exclusion requirement imposed as part of a community sentence, a suspended sentence order or a licence condition on release from custody. The offence carries the power of arrest without warrant. The maximum penalty is a term of imprisonment not exceeding 51 weeks or a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale, or both.

239. Subsection (1) provides that a constable may direct a person to leave a place where he has reasonable grounds to believe that the person is in an exclusion area at a time when he is prohibited from entering that area under the requirements of his sentence or licence condition.

240. Subsections (2) and (3) establish the scope of the offence.

241. Subsection (6) provides the power of arrest without warrant and is a transitional provision that will fall, by virtue of subsection (7), once the arrest provisions in section 106 come into effect.

242. Subsection (8)(a) extends the meaning of “sentence of imprisonment” and “prison” so as to include juvenile detention and conditions of release. Subsection (8)(b) clarifies the meaning of “release”, to ensure that its meaning is clear in relation to a prisoner serving intermittent custody.