Police stop and search in the UK?

I know the acts under which a police officer can stop you and search you, but what would count as suspicion if you where to be pulled over by a police officer? can they just pull you over for anything or do they have to have certain grounds to do that?

also, if my mate was to be pulled over by the police and they said ''we need to search your car'' and my mate says ''why?'' and they say ''because we have reason to believe you are carrying an illegal substance''... do they have to give you a reason as to why they have their supicions?

GÃ¼nther Bischoff

To carry out a search, the officer has to have reasonable suspicion that the person searched is carrying an illegal item. The problem is with the word 'reasonable'. What you consider to be reasonable might not be reasonable to me and vice versa. The way I was taught to do it was to assume you were a third person watching who had nothing to do with whatever was going on. Could you justify to yourself whether you were being reasonable.

I've done meetings with local teenagers where I've explained the law and laid out a scenario to them. The teenagers invariably started a search as they felt they had reasonable suspicion before the police officer would have.

The officer should give you the grounds, again if it reasonable to do so. In most cases it is but think of the situation where you believe a person has a knife or gun. Would you ask them if that was the case or would you jump on them straight away to prevent injury to yourself?

As to pulling you over, if you're in a car, yes, they can pull you over without any reason at all to inspect your driving documents. If you're on foot, an officer has the same right as anybody in the country to speak to you but cannot detain you without reasonable grounds.

Clear as mud, isn't it?

DAVID

they have to have grounds a crime has been comitted or law broken to pull you over as to your mate they do not have to give you reasons

LÃ¼cky Irish

The key words are suspicion and believe. If I were to suspect someone of having say drugs on them. that means I would be 2 / 10 certain.

If I believe they had drugs, its more like 8 / 10 certain.

The law is different for each search, so it depends what law they search you under. But it dictates wether the police must have reasonable grounds to suspect or to believe.

John C

There are lots of answers for this. There may be a police operation on in a certain area with officers instructed to randomly stop and search vehicles. Could be your mate had been at a house that was under observation by police and stopped as part of that operation. Your mate my have been known to police or the vehicle he was travelling in may have been observed parked previously in a known drug dealing area. Good chance that last week it was drink driving, this week drugs, next week speeding etc, and so on which is just normal operational procedures with all police departments. Maybe your mate was to busy looking at them in the rear view mirror instead of watching the road ahead.

guiri

The statistics show that not being white is suspicious.

Remember the chief of the Metropolitan Police stated publicly that his force was, "institutionally racist".

They believe that all non white people have drugs therefore they can stop them. Afro-Caribbean people are stopped regularly.
I have never been stopped.

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