Early Morning Warrant Call

Since covid-19 kicked everything into touch search warrants are now done remotely by regional panels of Magistrates who have volunteered and been trained up for the job.

I am not a member of my regional search warrant panel, so it would come as no exaggeration to say that I have not dealt with a warrant application in the last three years. I have never previously dealt with a remote application.

It therefore came as somewhat of a surprise to be approached by a legal advisor on my early arrival at court one morning and be asked to deal with an application. Because these are dealt with on a regional basis, it was an application by a police officer almost 150 miles away.

The gist of the application, in very broad terms, was that the police had received information about an individual they believed to be dealing class A drugs. They had solid, recent information to suggest that class A drugs were present on a particular premises and were therefore making an application for a warrant under section 8 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to conduct a search of that premises.

The application was necessary because the purposes of the search would be seriously frustrated unless immediate entry was secured. Furthermore, the individual in question had a history of non-cooperation and violence towards the police, so it was unlikely entry could be gained unless under the authority of a warrant. The application had been correctly authorised by an officer of at least inspector rank.

I had already carefully read through the application before the legal advisor got the relevant officer on the telephone. The officer was identified and sworn. I then proceeded to ask the officer to explain, in his own words, the circumstances surrounding the application - why a warrant was needed, necessary and proportionate.

There are a few questions that I always ask - has the property been subject to a search previously? If so, when and what was the outcome? Are there any vulnerable adults or children present at the premises? If the warrant is granted, how and when do you plan to make entry to the premises? In this particular case, as the application had flagged up previous non-cooperation and violence towards the police, I asked for further information about the previous convictions of the individual concerned.

I could hear the officer tapping away on his keyboard, but he was clearly struggling. After a minute of silence I asked if he was having difficulty, to which he replied "it's early in the morning an my terminal is working very slowly". I replied "is there anyone else in the office who can help?" and was slightly taken aback when the reply came "they're all sat outside in the van, waiting for you to grant the application". Eventually the information was forthcoming and it supported the notion that the police would have difficulty accessing the premises without a warrant.

By this stage I was quite satisfied that the grounds for granting a warrant had been made out, but decided to call the officer back with my decision 10 minutes later. Slightly miffed about his earlier van comment, I thought I'd let him stew for a while!