What happens after you’ve been released. A flowchart that attempts to summarise what can happen to you once you’re out of the police station, in a simplified format.
The flowchart below tries to summarise the various possible options that the police can use when they release you, from dropping the case immediately to charging you and bailing you to come to court. It is designed for giving to people on release from police custody, although some of the information in it may be worth reading before you’re arrested (it’s not much use finding out the implications of accepting or refusing a Caution once you’re released, for instance).
Please note that the flowchart leaves out a lot. There was no room for imagination, conscience, hope, resistance or any of the other values that inspires us to take action in the first place. Instead, I’ve confined the flowchart to simplified ‘official’ legal information. It’s up to you, and your affinity group, to fill in the gaps. . . .
One other thing omitted from the flowchart is the system of “fixed penalty notices” available to the police from August 2002.[note] The offences covered by these notices mainly concern drunkenness, so hopefully will not affect TPers, but also include wasting police time, trespassing on a railway and Public Order Act s.5 (behaviour likely to cause harrassment, alarm or distress, the most minor of the general POA charges).[note] These notices can be handed out either on the street or in a police station. In either case, you should get in touch with a solicitor and/or legal support as soon as possible, as you have to act quite quickly if you want to contest the notice.[note]
© Copyright 2001, Andrew Gray
What, “copyright”! Isn’t copyright evil? [ You better read these notes]
This briefing was written by me (with or without help from others) for Trident Ploughshares, but may be used freely and copied/distributed by others. In order to guarantee this freedom, the briefing is copyrighted and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (formal license statement follows).
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License.”
I am not a lawyer. The briefing is not guaranteed in any way, and is not a substitute for proper legal advice. Feedback and corrections are very welcome, phone 0845 4588 368, email andrew@andrewgray.uklinux.net.
Andrew Gray, TP legal support (England & Wales)
This briefing was last revised: 9/11/2002
The flowchart is also available for download in [PDF format] and in [FIG format].
(See the changelog and authorship page for revision details.)