Answers
Thread 3Does the fact that the events take place on private property affect the extent of police powers to act?
Normally police powers to stop and search members of the public under s.1 PACE is only exercisable in a public place. However there is a qualification to this rule under s.1(4) PACE which states:
(4) If a person is in a garden or yard occupied with and used for the
purposes of a dwelling or on other land so occupied and used, a constable
may not search him in the exercise of the power conferred by this section
unless the constable has reasonable grounds for believing-
(a) that he does not reside in the dwelling; and
(b) that he is not in the place in question with the express or implied
permission of the person who resides in the dwelling.
Here the time of day, Dave’s furtiveness and his behaviour in entering
the shed and appearing to remove something from it could, taken together,
give the officer the requisite reasonable suspicion and permit him to
exercise the s.1 power. Remember that the subsequent discovery that Dave
is the owner of the property does not vitiate the reasonableness of the
officer’s suspicion at the time it arose.