SEARCH POWERS PILOT S44-47 UK BORDERS ACT 2007

Police Training Presentation

Central Policy Unit

BackgroundBackground

•The need for the new powers was triggered by the Foreign National Prisoners crisis of 2006

• The then Home Secretary John Reid produced an 8-point plan to tackle the problems including:

Better arrangements for identifying foreign nationals where persons are arrested for criminal activity.

Aims:

• identify more accurately and earlier in the criminal justice process those eligible for deportation from the UK and give appropriate consideration.

• tackle harm within the community more effectively

Why do we need these new powers?

•The powers will assist in ascertaining or confirming the nationality of persons in order to assist the removals / deportation process.

•They will enable us to establish the nationality of persons arrested for criminal offences at an earlier stage and improve the effectiveness of handling foreign nationals within the criminal justice system.

•It will enable those individuals who represent a significant risk to the community to be permanently removed. As such it will directly support the police in raising community confidence and delivering the policing pledge by protecting communities from harm and delivering justice.

This will be achieved by police and immigration officers having the power to search premises for and seize documents relating to nationality where a person has been taken to a police station following their arrest for a criminal offence.

Establishing nationality

Custody Officers already need to clarify whether a person is a foreign national.Under PACE foreign national detainees have a right to contact their High Commission, Embassy or Consulate (see section 7 of PACE Code C and the Notice of Rights and Entitlements).Where a person claims to be British, (or an EEA national), they may reasonably be asked questions to corroborate this claim.British Citizens not born in the UK should be able to give considerable detail of how they came to be entitled to citizenship and details of addresses, friends and relatives to corroborate their history.Where people claim British or EEA nationality but also claim to have only recently moved to the UK having previously lived in another non EEA country - then UKBA advice should be sought.

Existing / previous powers

Limitations of previous powers:• Police powers under PACE enable police to search for evidence relating to the offence itself

• The police had no power to search for evidence of an individual’s nationality outside that framework

The new search powers are designed to close a gap in our existing armoury of search powers to enable searches for documentation (evidence of nationality) following arrest for a criminaloffence.

New Powers - General Framework

Building on the PACE framework

The new ‘without warrant’ powers are largely identical to existing powers under sections 18 and 32 of PACE.

Key differences of the nationality document powers are:• only apply to detainees who it is suspected are not British citizens• apply where a suspect has been arrested for any offence• searches without warrant always require prior written authorisation from an officer of Inspector rank or above•nationality documents do not need to be connected to the offence in question

New powers – Entry without warrant

Who: Persons arrested on suspicion of involvement in the commission of an offence and it’s suspected that:- the individual is not a British citizen- nationality documents may be found on the premises

Where: Applies to premises:- occupied or controlled by the individual- where the individual was arrested; or- where the individual was immediately before their arrest.

When: The power may not be exercised once the suspect has been released without charge.

Authorisation - Entry without warrant

Searches can be conducted only after authorisation by:- a police Inspector or above - for constables- or a Chief Immigration Officer or above – for IOs

The authorising officer must record:- the grounds for the search- the nature of the documents sought

There cannot be any ‘cross’ authorisation; i.e: a police Inspector cannot authorise an immigration officer and a CIO cannot authorise a police officer.

Separate authorisation must be obtained from respective chains of command even if it is for the same search, so this will need to be borne in mind for operational planning.

New powers – Entry with warrant

Who: Persons arrested on suspicion of involvement in the commission of an offence and it’s believed that:- the individual is not a British citizen- nationality documents may be found on the premises

Where: Applies to all other premises

When: The power may not be exercised once the suspect has been released without charge.

Authorisation: Justice of the Peace, conditions are that:- it’s not practicable to communicate with persons entitled to

grant entry- it’s not practicable to communicate with persons entitled to

grant access to the nationality documents- entry won’t be granted without a warrant- purpose of search will be frustrated without immediate entry

Reasonable Grounds

Searches will be necessary only where;

- an individual fails to co-operate in establishing his or her identity, or- the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that they are not telling the truth. (This must be recorded)

Every case must be considered on its individual merits. Grounds to suspect that an individual is not a British citizen must be based on a range of factors which includes, but is not limited to:- responses to questions about their nationality- ability to provide contact details for others who can corroborate their claims - inability or unwillingness to provide evidence of nationality- language- the bona fides of their stated identity based on documentary or other evidence

Document types – what to search for

When using the search powers it is important to be clear about what is actually being sought, as not all documentation is appropriate.

Acceptable - ✓ Possible - (?) Inappropriate - X

Passport CV Solicitors letter

National Identity Card Employment ID  

Birth Certificate  

51 Convention Travel Document Cert.    

Under the legislation documents subject to legal privilege may not be seized.

Enquiries – database checks

Enquiries should first be made to see whether the individual is already known to UKBA or the police before a search is instigated.

Police conduct UKBA status checks via:

Command & Control Unit on 0161 261 1640 (24 hrs)or Duty Office of Local Immigration Team

Monitoring

To ensure proper scrutiny and accountability use of the powers should be recorded in line with existing PACE procedures for entry, search and seizure powers, e.g.:

•once the search is complete the officer in charge must make a record of the search detailing:– the premises searched– the time and date of the search– the power used– the details of the officers who carried out the search and the names of

people of the premises– any items that were seized– how the search was conducted inc. whether force was used and why– reasons why the Notice of Powers and Rights was not given or details of

where the Notice and Warrant was left on the premises

•where a search is made under warrant the warrant must be endorsed and returned to the court.

Exercise of the power – Key triggers

Any decision to exercise the power is entirely an operational decision for the individual officer and the authorising officer concerned.

Where the statutory framework applies the use of the powers should automatically be considered in the following scenarios:

•where the police and UKBA have no record and/or documentation confirming the suspect’s nationality

•investigations involving drug dealing and/or firearms offences

•investigations where the suspect is served with an IM3 (notification of liability to deportation)

•investigations where the police are already planning to conduct searches under warrant or without a warrant (e.g. under sections 18 and 32 of PACE)

Q & A

Any questions?