Background and Summary
3.Part 4 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) makes provision in respect of the duration and conditions of detention of persons arrested under that Act on suspicion of committing a criminal offence. Amongst other things, PACE places a limit of 96 hours on the period someone may be detained by the police before they have to be either charged or released. PACE also makes provision for the police to release suspects on bail pending further enquiries. Since the provisions of PACE came into force on 1 January 1986, the police have operated the detention provisions on the basis that only the time spent in police detention counts towards the application of the 96-hour limit and that the ‘detention clock’ is paused when an individual is released on police bail.
4.This interpretation of the way the detention provisions of PACE operated was challenged in the case of Paul Hookway who was arrested by Greater Manchester Police in November 2010 on suspicion of murder and subsequently bailed. On 5 April 2011, a District Judge refused a routine application by Greater Manchester Police for a warrant of further detention of Mr Hookway on the grounds that the maximum detention limit had expired while the suspect was on bail. In effect, the District Judge held that time spent on police bail counted towards the 96-hour limit on detention under PACE. The decision of the District Judge was upheld by an oral ruling of the High Court on 19 May 2011 following an application for judicial review by Greater Manchester Police. The written judgment in the case, R (Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police) v. Salford Magistrates’ Court and Paul Hookway, was published on 17 June 2011. On 30 June 2011 in an oral statement in the House of Commons (Official Report, column 1133 to 1141) the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Rt. Hon. Nick Herbert MP) announced that, in view of the serious impact of the judgment on the police’s ability to investigate crime and protect the public, the Government intended to bring forward fast-track legislation to reverse the effects of the judgment.