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Good morning legal beagles,
I have a question that I'm hoping someone may be able to help me with, I dont seem to be able to find any info online about it.
Firstly a disclaimer... I am asking this purely out of curiosity, I have no real need to act on it either way thankfully, but the question has come up and I'm a very curious soul.
Is it possible, legally, to perform a citizens arrest on a police officer who is on duty?
I am aware that performing a citizens arrests on anyone is a bit of a minefield legally and there a a few conditions that need to be met, and even then can be dubious. One of the main issues I see with this is that one of the conditions is that "you must believe at the time of arrest it is not reasonably practical for a police officer to perform the arrest", so if there are 2 officers present and one commits a crime it would be reasonable to assume that the other officer should/would make the arrest. So for the purposes of this question ill make up a scenario.
An officer who is alone, in uniform, assaults a member of the public who is not reasonably suspected of committing an offence, and has not been in prior contact or conversation with that officer and a passer-by witnesses the event and wishes to perform a citizens arrest as there are no other officers in the vicinity.
I know this is an extremely unlikely scenario but if it were to happen what would the passer-bys rights be? Is there an example of a police officer being arrested via a citizens arrest in the UK or has the precedent not been set?
I have asked a couple of officers and they both replied that they didn't know, but we cant reasonably assume that every officer knows the law inside out.
I have performed a citizens arrest and had it legally upheld but in very different circumstances, even then there were quite a few questions asked and im not entirely sure whether the officers involved just chose to ignore it or not.
Many thanks in advance
I have a question that I'm hoping someone may be able to help me with, I dont seem to be able to find any info online about it.
Firstly a disclaimer... I am asking this purely out of curiosity, I have no real need to act on it either way thankfully, but the question has come up and I'm a very curious soul.
Is it possible, legally, to perform a citizens arrest on a police officer who is on duty?
I am aware that performing a citizens arrests on anyone is a bit of a minefield legally and there a a few conditions that need to be met, and even then can be dubious. One of the main issues I see with this is that one of the conditions is that "you must believe at the time of arrest it is not reasonably practical for a police officer to perform the arrest", so if there are 2 officers present and one commits a crime it would be reasonable to assume that the other officer should/would make the arrest. So for the purposes of this question ill make up a scenario.
An officer who is alone, in uniform, assaults a member of the public who is not reasonably suspected of committing an offence, and has not been in prior contact or conversation with that officer and a passer-by witnesses the event and wishes to perform a citizens arrest as there are no other officers in the vicinity.
I know this is an extremely unlikely scenario but if it were to happen what would the passer-bys rights be? Is there an example of a police officer being arrested via a citizens arrest in the UK or has the precedent not been set?
I have asked a couple of officers and they both replied that they didn't know, but we cant reasonably assume that every officer knows the law inside out.
I have performed a citizens arrest and had it legally upheld but in very different circumstances, even then there were quite a few questions asked and im not entirely sure whether the officers involved just chose to ignore it or not.
Many thanks in advance
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