Police And Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) - A Unified Code Of Practice

Overview of PACE and its Prominence

PACE is considered to unify the police powers through one particular code of practice and along with such it tries to balance the rights of the individuals carefully against the supremacies of the police. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was considered to be brought through the commendations of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. In addition to this, it also contracts and along with such deals with the need of the police officer to make certain records for stops and encounters (Ozin and Norton 2019). In this scenario, this statute would be used to search Abs for injuring Nick.

PACE is well-thought out to strike the right balance as it offers powers to the police and along with such offers rights as well as freedoms to the public. The police officers after discovering the crime tries to bring the criminals to justice as they take the necessary steps to keep peace. However, the prevention of crime and the protection of the individuals are considered to important and this statute is supposed to be offering the help to the police officers for administering justice. PACE is considered to create primary methods that are used by the police officials to detect and identify the individuals by connecting them to the offences after proper accurate searches and through reliable criminal records. Therefore, it gives the police officers statutory powers of arrest. On the other hand, in case a suspect is considered to be detained they are entitled to free legal advice through the application and implementation of the Act as they also require representation. Therefore, this right is supposed to be tested for each and every citizen as the citizens are entitled to free legal advice once they are detained under PACE (Farrugia and Gabbert 2019).

PACE is considered to tackle and cover the criminal offences through the legislative framework. It is an Act of the Parliament that had been instituted for offering powers to the police officers in England and Wales in order to combat crimes by providing codes of practice that would be exercising those powers. For instance, this can be highlighted through the case of R v Chan-Fook [1993] EWCA Crim 1. It can be understood through the analysis of the scenario, that criminal offence such as assault occasioning Actual Bodily Harm pursuant to Section 47 of the OAPA 1861. It can be illustrated through the case of R v Donovan [1934] 2 KB 498. Abs also committed the offence of Common Assault under Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. It can be enumerated through the instance of DPP v Little [1992] QB 645. Due to this the prosecutor would have to determine the charge whether it would be common assault or ABH. It can be determined through the instance of DPP v Smith [2006] EWHC 94.

The proper procedure for the police officer under the PACE for the act of Abs as per the analysis of the scenario would be to issue a warrant of Arrest against Abs for committing the offence. The steps or the stages are as follows: -

Powers Offered by PACE to Police Officers

The police officer would have to execute the warrant in order to notify the individuals of the substance thereof as the person arrested would be demanding the depiction of the warrant.

After such, the person is given a charge sheet as such provides the details of the crime committed by the specific person.

The police subsequently, will decide whether the person needs to be taken into police custody or would be applying for bail.

Till the time the person is getting bail he or she would be in the police custody.

The police are required to bring the individual before the Court without any kind of unnecessary delay.

The first hearing is supposed to be conducted in the magistrates’ court and the trial later on gets shifted to the Crown Court and from there the case is decided (Oluboku 2019).

In case a person is charged with a minor offence the case is supposed to be decided through the single justice procedure without going to the court and the person needs to respond within twenty-one days.

The term bail is considered to demonstrate that the accused is set free from jail against a certain kind of security that would be given to him by the court during the proceedings. Bail means that the individual would be released from custody upon certain specific conditions such as providing a particular living address along with not contacting with specific individuals and giving the passport to the police and reporting to the police station at an agreed time (Udemezue and Ojeih 2021).

In case of being charged with an offence, the court decides whether the person can be granted bail on the basis of the bail hearing. The court is supposed to determine such on the basis of the serious offence that the individual has been charged with along with the previous convictions of the serious crime in the past. The court also determines such by examining and assessing the behavior and conduct of the individual in court as they might not turn up for the next hearing or they might commit crime while they are on bail (Smith 2021).

In case Abs is appearing for a bail hearing the court would determine the gravity of the offence and the charge faced by her and after such, it would require Abs to provide her passport so that she does not have the ability of leaving the country. Abs might also be asked to report to the police station at an agreed upon time in order to determine and assess her behavior. In addition to this, Abs would also have to show her criminal records or previous offences in order to get a bail and overall, her conduct would determine the granting of bail (Sosabowski and Johnston 2022).

Bail is considered to be an agreement between the defendant and the Court where the latter is considered to agree on granting bail or pretrial release in exchange of the defendant’s promise to attend all the trial meetings that have been scheduled by the court. A bail can be conditional or unconditional depending upon the gravity or the severity of the charges. Conditional bail is considered to be the type of bail where the defendant poses an escape risk as the court is well-thought out to add conditions for the release. On the other hand, unconditional bail is supposed to be a little simpler and along with such a bit unstructured as it is applied on the accused individual who is a no-flight risk as the charges are relatively insignificant. However, only two conditions are applied on the party in case of unconditional bail. The first is to put up with the laws of the state and along with such, to appear in all the court hearings (van den Brink 2021).

Process for Making an Arrest under PACE

The Crown Prosecution Service is considered to be a principle public agency that conducts the criminal trials in England and Wales. The primary responsibilities of the CPS are considered to inclusive of providing legal instructions and guidance to the police as well as other investigative agencies. This is during the time of the criminal investigations as the conduct of the prosecutions are supposed to be crucial in magistrates’ courts and the Crown Courts (Clough 2021).

The Crown Prosecution Service is considered to decide the cases that are to be prosecuted. It also regulates the suitable charges through serious multifaceted and composite cases and advises the individuals and the police during the early stage of the investigations. The CPS also prepares cases and along with such grants them at court and it also provides the information through assistance and support as it offers assistance to victims through prosecution witnesses. The prosecutors in CPS needs to be fair as well as objective and independent as they would be determining the case by charging someone with criminal offence (Porter 2019).

The CPS is considered to help the police officials with investigations and due to such both the departments of the criminal justice system are supposed to have a good relationship. The commitment towards inclusion and equality is supposed to create a basis for effective community engagement as both CPS and the police department is supposed to informed about the prosecution policies and practice (Tapley 2020).

The Code for Crown Prosecutors (the Code) is deemed to be a public document that is issued through the Director of Public Prosecutions as it sets out the general principles of Crown prosecution while making decisions on cases. It gives guidance to the prosecutors on the principles while making decisions about the prosecutions. This particular Code is considered to be followed through a Convention because they are supposed to be necessitated to do so by law.

In order to prosecute, the CPS is supposed to evaluate and analyze the evidence that are passed by the police officials to them for the case. After such, the CPS is deemed to review the evidence in order to consider such for prosecution. Subsequently, if the police are considered to not have enough evidence the case would not be passed but if the evidentiary statements are enough then the suspect is charged with the crime (Langton, Dixon and Farrell 2021).

The evidential stage is considered to be the first stage in the decision of prosecution as the Crown Prosecutors would have to satisfy the realistic prospect of conviction through enough evidentiary statements. The individuals would have to take into account the evidence as such needs to be reliable in order to determine the action. The Approval Officer, in this particular stage would have to offer a Full Code Test through the Code for Crown Prosecutors and along with such the Enforcement Policy Statement. Furthermore, the Approval Officer would also have to consider the evidential stage where the strength of the evidence would be determined (Anozie 2021).

Bail and Court Hearings

The factors in relation to poor evidentiary statements along with the evidential stage as well as the manner in which the evidence had been collected would determine the interest to continue with the prosecution. The evidences provided in the criminal court might be admissible as the courts might not allow the information to be heard in spite of it being relevant to the case. Therefore, the Approval Officer needs to satisfy the admissibility of the evidence through the evidential stage in order to create sufficiency (Pilditch, Fries and Lagnado 2019).

Public interest cases are considered to determine the general welfare of the public as such warrants recognition as well as protection. Therefore, the particular case of common assault with ABH is considered to be a public interest case because the public as a whole has a stake or an interest that justifies the regulation of the government (Loeffler and Bovaird 2020).

Magistrates are considered to carefully listen to all the evidences that are provided in the court as such are well-thought out to create and follow a structured decision-making process. This is supposed to be in compliance with the sentencing guidelines in criminal cases as the magistrates would require case laws to reach fair decisions. Therefore, they are advised on points of law. The magistrates are considered to have sentencing powers which permit them to impose several ranges of sentences that are inclusive of unlimited fines along with bans and community orders. In addition to this, they can also ask the person committing the offence to be penalized from six months of custody for an offence up to twelve months in total (Naughton 2020).

Lay Magistrates are considered to also be referred to as Justice of the Peace and they sit in the magistrates’ court in groups of three. However, District Judges are supposed to sit alone usually and they have similar powers to that of the bench 2 magistrates. However, they do not sit alone in a family court. The district judges are considered to hear youth cases as well as criminal cases in the civil proceedings at a magistrate’s courts. Nevertheless, lay magistrates are considered to be inconsistent across the country as they lack legal knowledge (Corby et al. 2020).

The maximum indictment that can be received by Abs for assaulting and causing actual bodily harm would be two years of imprisonment or a fine. The penalization would try to create an intent of resisting the criminal offence from happening in the future as the apprehension as well as detention is required for deterring the individual from crime (Welsh 2022).  

Legal aid in England and Wales is considered to be essentially provided for criminal as well as civil cases. The defendant has the right to legal representation due to the principle of right to fair trial. This is considered to be protected by the Human Rights Act 1998 as it protects the rights of the individuals for presenting a case prior to the decision being made. The right is supposed to help the court understand the actions of the individual and through proper evidence a decision would be given as such is needed to deter the individuals from crime (Sobko et al. 2021).

References

Anozie, I., 2021. Silence In Court: The Evidential Implication Of An Accused Person’s Failure To Testify. De Juriscope Law Journal , 1(2).

Clough, J., 2021. 25 The Crown PROSECUTION SERVICE. An Introduction to Criminology.

Code for Crown Prosecutors (the Code).

Corby, S., Burgess, P., Höland, A., Michel, H. and Willemez, L., 2020. Lay and professional judges in Europe’s labour courts: does the professional judge dominate?. Industrial Law Journal, 49(2), pp.231-257.

Criminal Justice Act 1988.

DPP v Little [1992] QB 645.

DPP v Smith [2006] EWHC 94.

Farrugia, L. and Gabbert, F., 2019. The “appropriate adult”: What they do and what they should do in police interviews with mentally disordered suspects. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 29(3), pp.134-141.

Langton, S., Dixon, A. and Farrell, G., 2021. Six months in: pandemic crime trends in England and Wales. Crime science, 10(1), pp.1-16.

Loeffler, E. and Bovaird, T., 2020. Assessing the impact of co-production on pathways to outcomes in public services: The case of policing and criminal justice. International Public Management Journal, 23(2), pp.205-223.

Naughton, D.A., 2020. Improving the Collection and Enforcement of Confiscation Orders in the Magistrates’ Court (Doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln).

Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

Oluboku, J., 2019. Detainees in police custody in Yorkshire, United Kingdom: A survey of the common mental health problems. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, 8, pp.12-19.

Ozin, P. and Norton, H., 2019. PACE: A practical guide to the police and criminal evidence act 1984. Oxford University Press.

Pilditch, T.D., Fries, A. and Lagnado, D.A., 2019. Deception in evidential reasoning: Willful deceit or honest mistake?. In CogSci (pp. 931-937).

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

Porter, A., 2019. Prosecuting domestic abuse in England and Wales: Crown Prosecution Service ‘working practice’and new public managerialism. Social & Legal Studies, 28(4), pp.493-516.

R v Chan-Fook [1993] EWCA Crim 1.

R v Donovan [1934] 2 KB 498.

SMITH, T., 2021. ‘Rushing Remand’? Pretrial Detention and Bail Decision Making in England and Wales. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 60(1), pp.46-74.

Sobko, G., Muliar, G., Draliuk, I., Hryhorchuk, M., Holovko, O. and Lvova, I., 2021. Gaps, conflicts and contradictions regarding measures to ensure the right to a fair trial of the convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Linguistics and Culture Review, 5(S4), pp.1968-1984.

Sosabowski, M.H. and Johnston, E., 2022. Released Under Investigation: High Time to Bail Out. The Journal of Criminal Law, p.00220183221078935.

Tapley, J., 2020. Politics, Policies and Professional Cultures: Creating Space for a Victim Perspective in the Crown Prosecution Service. In Victimology (pp. 213-245). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Udemezue, S. and Ojeih, C.A., 2021. An Appraisal of Emerging Issues in the Law and Practice Relating to Bail, Bondspersons and Forfeiture of Recognizance in Nigeria. Bondspersons and Forfeiture of Recognizance in Nigeria.(February 20, 2021).

van den Brink, Y., 2021. Remand decision-making in the youth court. A comparative analysis of youth remand and bail in England & Wales and the Netherlands. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 66, p.100487.

Welsh, L., 2022. Access to Justice in Magistrates' Courts: A Study of Defendant Marginalisation. Bloomsbury Publishing.