Why do the Police turn up en masse to certain arrests?
Discussion
I’ve just seen a YouTube video from Brendan Kavanagh about his arrest for a dispute with the Catholic Church. I also recently saw one from The Times about a chap from Stevenage who fell out with his child’s school governors.
Years ago there was the Cliff Richard fiasco.
I’m not going to spend much time on the rights or wrongs of the actual arrests - Kavanagh seems to deliberately provoke things a bit, like some other YouTubers, and the man from Stevenage may also have gone over the top, but neither eventually had a case pursued against them, so you have to wonder about the Police getting involved in the first place.
What I’m more interested in is the decision making process behind the massive force used. Do the Police really have no idea/intelligence about the people they are going to arrest? The Stevenage chap was on a work Teams call when he noticed SIX officers lurking outside and three Police vehicles. Kavanagh’s video also shows six plus vans and cars.
What is this all about? Both cases should surely have involved a phone call inviting the accused person to report to their local Police Station within a sensible time limit.
Is there something about the “rules of engagement” that needs changing or have Police Sergeants (or whoever makes the decisions on such minor operations) lost their marbles?
Years ago there was the Cliff Richard fiasco.
I’m not going to spend much time on the rights or wrongs of the actual arrests - Kavanagh seems to deliberately provoke things a bit, like some other YouTubers, and the man from Stevenage may also have gone over the top, but neither eventually had a case pursued against them, so you have to wonder about the Police getting involved in the first place.
What I’m more interested in is the decision making process behind the massive force used. Do the Police really have no idea/intelligence about the people they are going to arrest? The Stevenage chap was on a work Teams call when he noticed SIX officers lurking outside and three Police vehicles. Kavanagh’s video also shows six plus vans and cars.
What is this all about? Both cases should surely have involved a phone call inviting the accused person to report to their local Police Station within a sensible time limit.
Is there something about the “rules of engagement” that needs changing or have Police Sergeants (or whoever makes the decisions on such minor operations) lost their marbles?
There will be an intelligence picture of some description behind each of those cases including who the person is, their previous history and what the person making the call to police has reported amongst many other things, none of those we are privy to so anything more is speculation.
If you are interested in how Police make decisions do a search for the National Decision Model and it will come up for you to read up on.
If you are interested in how Police make decisions do a search for the National Decision Model and it will come up for you to read up on.
Two persons to be arrested, ideally then kept apart, supervised whilst any search of vehicle / property takes place and then escorted to custody unit. That's at least four officers.
They would possibly be aware that there might be children there and provisions for them needs to be sorted out, which may involve taking them elsewhere. Three children with possibly clothes, school clothes, school books etc as these things take time. Two officers, and this alone can take hours.
A search of vehicles / property (in this case a farm) and no, not a trawl, but a section 18 or section 32 search for particular items / evidence can take hours. With additional officers this can be done very much quicker. One officer alone searching a house will leave themselves open to allegations.
Experience will have also taught any experienced officers that if the detained people are present during the searches (as ideally they should be), the longer the searches go on, then the more difficult and problematic the detained persons usually become.
An apparently simple job like this can often take most or all of the officers on a shift, and would take longer than 8 hours by the time that everything is sorted, including seized property etc.
How do you know that they hadn't been invited to the station and not turned up?
What if making arrangements like that would then have allowed issues such as interference with witnesses etc, or disposal of evidence?
As a side note, he is a very talented pianist and I've spent quite a few hours over the years watching him on YT, but at times he really doesn't help himself.
They would possibly be aware that there might be children there and provisions for them needs to be sorted out, which may involve taking them elsewhere. Three children with possibly clothes, school clothes, school books etc as these things take time. Two officers, and this alone can take hours.
A search of vehicles / property (in this case a farm) and no, not a trawl, but a section 18 or section 32 search for particular items / evidence can take hours. With additional officers this can be done very much quicker. One officer alone searching a house will leave themselves open to allegations.
Experience will have also taught any experienced officers that if the detained people are present during the searches (as ideally they should be), the longer the searches go on, then the more difficult and problematic the detained persons usually become.
An apparently simple job like this can often take most or all of the officers on a shift, and would take longer than 8 hours by the time that everything is sorted, including seized property etc.
How do you know that they hadn't been invited to the station and not turned up?
What if making arrangements like that would then have allowed issues such as interference with witnesses etc, or disposal of evidence?
As a side note, he is a very talented pianist and I've spent quite a few hours over the years watching him on YT, but at times he really doesn't help himself.
mkjess123 said:
Two persons to be arrested, ideally then kept apart, supervised whilst any search of vehicle / property takes place and then escorted to custody unit. That's at least four officers.
They would possibly be aware that there might be children there and provisions for them needs to be sorted out, which may involve taking them elsewhere. Three children with possibly clothes, school clothes, school books etc as these things take time. Two officers, and this alone can take hours.
A search of vehicles / property (in this case a farm) and no, not a trawl, but a section 18 or section 32 search for particular items / evidence can take hours. With additional officers this can be done very much quicker. One officer alone searching a house will leave themselves open to allegations.
Experience will have also taught any experienced officers that if the detained people are present during the searches (as ideally they should be), the longer the searches go on, then the more difficult and problematic the detained persons usually become.
An apparently simple job like this can often take most or all of the officers on a shift, and would take longer than 8 hours by the time that everything is sorted, including seized property etc.
How do you know that they hadn't been invited to the station and not turned up?
What if making arrangements like that would then have allowed issues such as interference with witnesses etc, or disposal of evidence?
As a side note, he is a very talented pianist and I've spent quite a few hours over the years watching him on YT, but at times he really doesn't help himself.
I found the “two persons to be arrested…” scenario to be a bit strange as well. Are we to assume that in both cases, both were equally involved in these (eventually non) crimes? If not, then just arrest the parent seen to be the prime mover, and then you have no problem with the kids.They would possibly be aware that there might be children there and provisions for them needs to be sorted out, which may involve taking them elsewhere. Three children with possibly clothes, school clothes, school books etc as these things take time. Two officers, and this alone can take hours.
A search of vehicles / property (in this case a farm) and no, not a trawl, but a section 18 or section 32 search for particular items / evidence can take hours. With additional officers this can be done very much quicker. One officer alone searching a house will leave themselves open to allegations.
Experience will have also taught any experienced officers that if the detained people are present during the searches (as ideally they should be), the longer the searches go on, then the more difficult and problematic the detained persons usually become.
An apparently simple job like this can often take most or all of the officers on a shift, and would take longer than 8 hours by the time that everything is sorted, including seized property etc.
How do you know that they hadn't been invited to the station and not turned up?
What if making arrangements like that would then have allowed issues such as interference with witnesses etc, or disposal of evidence?
As a side note, he is a very talented pianist and I've spent quite a few hours over the years watching him on YT, but at times he really doesn't help himself.
Also - what are the team going to be searching for? Both these cases seem to involve online/e mail actions. Surely the complainants themselves need to produce the evidence of the thing/s they believe to be illegal behaviour?
I agree with your assessment of Kavanagh - he must think all his Christmases have come at once now, as there will be a massive increase in his YouTube presence.
Foss62 said:
I found the two persons to be arrested scenario to be a bit strange as well. Are we to assume that in both cases, both were equally involved in these (eventually non) crimes? If not, then just arrest the parent seen to be the prime mover, and then you have no problem with the kids.
Also - what are the team going to be searching for? Both these cases seem to involve online/e mail actions. Surely the complainants themselves need to produce the evidence of the thing/s they believe to be illegal behaviour?
I agree with your assessment of Kavanagh - he must think all his Christmases have come at once now, as there will be a massive increase in his YouTube presence.
If the investigation focusses on one of the couple then you’re providing a defence for the one you arrested in the form of, “the other one did it”. To make matters worse, this only comes to light at the point the serve their defence case statement pre trial so any chance of negating that defence, or incriminating the other person is greatly reduced. Also - what are the team going to be searching for? Both these cases seem to involve online/e mail actions. Surely the complainants themselves need to produce the evidence of the thing/s they believe to be illegal behaviour?
I agree with your assessment of Kavanagh - he must think all his Christmases have come at once now, as there will be a massive increase in his YouTube presence.
In terms of the search, no evidence is rarely as straightforward as that. Yes the complainant will produce their evidence but that then needs to be attributed to the defendant. I could quite easily open a foss62@hotmail.com email account but I’d doesn’t mean you have access to it. They’ll be searching for digital devices that can be downloaded to show the primary evidence of sending whatever data the investigation is focused on. They’ll be looking for evidence of those identifiers in contacts on any mobile phones and evidence of their internet history ever accessing the accounts. They’ll be looking for other devices which share the ip address of any they’ve acquired from the email provider that were used at the times of the offences.
There’s lots more but I’m sure you get the picture. I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming investigations are as easy as you see on the television but they’re not.
My friends lot are a tight bunch. Really there for each other. When their Sgt goes to something everyone, the entire shift goes if they are free including any other units.
At least one of them is assaulted once a month if not more. So if more hands are free it stops someone chancing his or her luck in assaulting cops.
Policing nowadays isn't like a normal job. No one who is Hep C bites you in a normal job.
At least one of them is assaulted once a month if not more. So if more hands are free it stops someone chancing his or her luck in assaulting cops.
Policing nowadays isn't like a normal job. No one who is Hep C bites you in a normal job.
Hugo Stiglitz said:
My friends lot are a tight bunch. Really there for each other. When their Sgt goes to something everyone, the entire shift goes if they are free including any other units.
At least one of them is assaulted once a month if not more. So if more hands are free it stops someone chancing his or her luck in assaulting cops.
Policing nowadays isn't like a normal job. No one who is Hep C bites you in a normal job.
How can they have the free time for the entire shift to go, when they’re too busy to deal with theft and burglary?At least one of them is assaulted once a month if not more. So if more hands are free it stops someone chancing his or her luck in assaulting cops.
Policing nowadays isn't like a normal job. No one who is Hep C bites you in a normal job.
thisnameistaken said:
If the investigation focusses on one of the couple then you re providing a defence for the one you arrested in the form of, the other one did it . To make matters worse, this only comes to light at the point the serve their defence case statement pre trial so any chance of negating that defence, or incriminating the other person is greatly reduced.
In terms of the search, no evidence is rarely as straightforward as that. Yes the complainant will produce their evidence but that then needs to be attributed to the defendant. I could quite easily open a foss62@hotmail.com email account but I d doesn t mean you have access to it. They ll be searching for digital devices that can be downloaded to show the primary evidence of sending whatever data the investigation is focused on. They ll be looking for evidence of those identifiers in contacts on any mobile phones and evidence of their internet history ever accessing the accounts. They ll be looking for other devices which share the ip address of any they ve acquired from the email provider that were used at the times of the offences.
There s lots more but I m sure you get the picture. I think it s easy to fall into the trap of assuming investigations are as easy as you see on the television but they re not.
To be honest, I’m not sure I do get the picture, at least with the cases mentioned. In both cases the accused people would seem to be tied strongly by circumstances into the actions they took, and unlikely to backtrack on anything anyway. In fact if those accused had backtracked or denied involvement, it would surely be a suitable end result for the complainants? In terms of the search, no evidence is rarely as straightforward as that. Yes the complainant will produce their evidence but that then needs to be attributed to the defendant. I could quite easily open a foss62@hotmail.com email account but I d doesn t mean you have access to it. They ll be searching for digital devices that can be downloaded to show the primary evidence of sending whatever data the investigation is focused on. They ll be looking for evidence of those identifiers in contacts on any mobile phones and evidence of their internet history ever accessing the accounts. They ll be looking for other devices which share the ip address of any they ve acquired from the email provider that were used at the times of the offences.
There s lots more but I m sure you get the picture. I think it s easy to fall into the trap of assuming investigations are as easy as you see on the television but they re not.
I always thought that these sort of ‘he said/she said’ cases were regarded as ‘civil matters’ and the Police wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole?
Hugo Stiglitz said:
My friends lot are a tight bunch. Really there for each other. When their Sgt goes to something everyone, the entire shift goes if they are free including any other units.
At least one of them is assaulted once a month if not more. So if more hands are free it stops someone chancing his or her luck in assaulting cops.
Policing nowadays isn't like a normal job. No one who is Hep C bites you in a normal job.
That was really my point about the use of intelligence/research/local knowledge etc. There must surely be policing jobs/areas/‘communities’ that are reckoned to be high risk in terms of assaults and other anti-social behaviour? At least one of them is assaulted once a month if not more. So if more hands are free it stops someone chancing his or her luck in assaulting cops.
Policing nowadays isn't like a normal job. No one who is Hep C bites you in a normal job.
The two examples I mentioned don’t seem to fall into this category - so are actually depriving officers of assistance in more risky assignments.
Maybe I am labouring under a misconception here and officers don’t do much in the way of prior investigation?
"A copper being a witness for another one......Nice."
What an ignorant and ill informed comment. When I was in that job I would have rather have had my colleagues being a witness for me than many of the public that I had to have contact with.
All of the information re the arrest has come from BC himself and there is no way he's going to describe it accurately . There is nothing accurate in the public domain which explains anything. We have absolutely no idea what is supposed to have happened and who might have been named as the offender / s, and or why they have been arrested. I have never heard a previously arrested person describe accurately why they've been arrested.
In respect of evidence gathering, because we don't know what's happened, we have no idea what was being looked for in the search. It could be something electronic or firearms (maybe a legit owner), writing paper or a particular pen, anything which relates to the alleged offence. I once had to search for a smashed vibrator that had been quite literally smashed around a male victims head!
What an ignorant and ill informed comment. When I was in that job I would have rather have had my colleagues being a witness for me than many of the public that I had to have contact with.
All of the information re the arrest has come from BC himself and there is no way he's going to describe it accurately . There is nothing accurate in the public domain which explains anything. We have absolutely no idea what is supposed to have happened and who might have been named as the offender / s, and or why they have been arrested. I have never heard a previously arrested person describe accurately why they've been arrested.
In respect of evidence gathering, because we don't know what's happened, we have no idea what was being looked for in the search. It could be something electronic or firearms (maybe a legit owner), writing paper or a particular pen, anything which relates to the alleged offence. I once had to search for a smashed vibrator that had been quite literally smashed around a male victims head!
Foss62 said:
thisnameistaken said:
If the investigation focusses on one of the couple then you re providing a defence for the one you arrested in the form of, the other one did it . To make matters worse, this only comes to light at the point the serve their defence case statement pre trial so any chance of negating that defence, or incriminating the other person is greatly reduced.
In terms of the search, no evidence is rarely as straightforward as that. Yes the complainant will produce their evidence but that then needs to be attributed to the defendant. I could quite easily open a foss62@hotmail.com email account but I d doesn t mean you have access to it. They ll be searching for digital devices that can be downloaded to show the primary evidence of sending whatever data the investigation is focused on. They ll be looking for evidence of those identifiers in contacts on any mobile phones and evidence of their internet history ever accessing the accounts. They ll be looking for other devices which share the ip address of any they ve acquired from the email provider that were used at the times of the offences.
There s lots more but I m sure you get the picture. I think it s easy to fall into the trap of assuming investigations are as easy as you see on the television but they re not.
To be honest, I m not sure I do get the picture, at least with the cases mentioned. In both cases the accused people would seem to be tied strongly by circumstances into the actions they took, and unlikely to backtrack on anything anyway. In fact if those accused had backtracked or denied involvement, it would surely be a suitable end result for the complainants? In terms of the search, no evidence is rarely as straightforward as that. Yes the complainant will produce their evidence but that then needs to be attributed to the defendant. I could quite easily open a foss62@hotmail.com email account but I d doesn t mean you have access to it. They ll be searching for digital devices that can be downloaded to show the primary evidence of sending whatever data the investigation is focused on. They ll be looking for evidence of those identifiers in contacts on any mobile phones and evidence of their internet history ever accessing the accounts. They ll be looking for other devices which share the ip address of any they ve acquired from the email provider that were used at the times of the offences.
There s lots more but I m sure you get the picture. I think it s easy to fall into the trap of assuming investigations are as easy as you see on the television but they re not.
I always thought that these sort of he said/she said cases were regarded as civil matters and the Police wouldn t touch them with a barge pole?
thisnameistaken said:
I m not really sure what you re asking now. I answered your question but now you re talking about specific cases. Unlikely to backtrack on anything anyway isn t an evidential threshold I d like to prosecute under and civil matters are simply a matter of fact ie it s civil law not criminal.
I’m also struggling with what I am asking. The two specific cases are what captured my attention and I feel uncomfortable about. If someone stole one of my bikes and six Police officers turned up at the suspect’s house, arrested him and his wife in front of their children and thoroughly searched their property for other stolen goods, I would be quite happy with that, but I suspect this is not normal procedure?
Both the mentioned cases, on the face of it, seem lesser issues. I’ve been a school governor and I know some parents can be difficult and opinionated and share things on social media. That is part of the job. I would hope that if anything was taken as far as the Police there would have to be something absolutely horrific in there for them to agree to take action on any scale. If there was a threat to burn down the Chairman of governors’ house, then fine, fill your boots, but there clearly wasn’t or the case wouldn’t have been dropped.
A number of people have explained in the thread now why there might be a large response from officers. Your analogy of the bike thief is a good example; you’d like to see 6 officers turn up. Why? Because you feel like that’s a better response? More is better? No, officers turn up for many reasons but it’s based on the risk the type of work needed and any specialisms they have or experience they need.
mkjess123 said:
"A copper being a witness for another one......Nice."
What an ignorant and ill informed comment. When I was in that job I would have rather have had my colleagues being a witness for me than many of the public that I had to have contact with.
All of the information re the arrest has come from BC himself and there is no way he's going to describe it accurately . There is nothing accurate in the public domain which explains anything. We have absolutely no idea what is supposed to have happened and who might have been named as the offender / s, and or why they have been arrested. I have never heard a previously arrested person describe accurately why they've been arrested.
In respect of evidence gathering, because we don't know what's happened, we have no idea what was being looked for in the search. It could be something electronic or firearms (maybe a legit owner), writing paper or a particular pen, anything which relates to the alleged offence. I once had to search for a smashed vibrator that had been quite literally smashed around a male victims head!
Next up, Police never lie, never make things up, never plant anything.....give me a breakWhat an ignorant and ill informed comment. When I was in that job I would have rather have had my colleagues being a witness for me than many of the public that I had to have contact with.
All of the information re the arrest has come from BC himself and there is no way he's going to describe it accurately . There is nothing accurate in the public domain which explains anything. We have absolutely no idea what is supposed to have happened and who might have been named as the offender / s, and or why they have been arrested. I have never heard a previously arrested person describe accurately why they've been arrested.
In respect of evidence gathering, because we don't know what's happened, we have no idea what was being looked for in the search. It could be something electronic or firearms (maybe a legit owner), writing paper or a particular pen, anything which relates to the alleged offence. I once had to search for a smashed vibrator that had been quite literally smashed around a male victims head!
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