Commentary on Sections Part 1: Amendments of Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 Section 8: Property of detained persons
126.This provision removes the requirement on the custody officer, currently in section 54(1) of PACE, to record or cause to be recorded everything a detained person has with him on entering custody. The custody officer will still be under a duty to ascertain what the person has with him, but the nature and detail of any recording will be at the custody officer’s discretion. He will also have discretion as to whether the record is kept as part of the custody record or as a separate record. This seeks to reduce the serious burden on officers which can arise from recording large volumes of property. Clearly, it will still be necessary to make records, not least to ensure against claims that property has been mishandled or removed. However, it will now be open to the police to make judgements about how to balance the need for recording against the amount of administrative work involved.