Powers of entry, search and seizure Section 17: Warrants authorising entry and search of premises
Subsection (1) enables a justice to issue a search warrant to a police or customs officer that authorises that officer to enter premises specified in the warrant and search them for such evidence. A justice is defined in section 38. There is a two-stage test for the grant of a search warrant (subsections (5) and (6)). The first element of the test is that the justice must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that evidence of a relevant offence is to be found on premises covered by the warrant. The second element of the test is that any of the conditions in subsection (6) are met. The nature of those conditions is such that a relevant police or customs officer should, where possible, secure entry into premises or access to items on the premises with the co-operation of the owner or occupier and only seek a warrant where such co-operation is unlikely to be forthcoming or where the purpose of the search would be frustrated or seriously prejudiced if immediate entry to the premises could not be secured using the authority of a warrant.
	Subsection (2) ensures that applications for a search warrant must be made, in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, by a police or customs officer, or, in Scotland, by a police or customs officer or the procurator fiscal.
	Subsection (3) ensures that a police or customs officer applying for the warrant must be an appropriate level of seniority or be authorised by a person of that level of seniority.
	Subsection (4) provides for a search warrant to be issued under this section may either be in relation to a single set of premises (a "specific-premises warrant") or, in England and Wales and Northern Ireland only, an "all-premises warrant" where it is necessary to search all premises occupied or controlled by an individual, but it is not reasonably practical to specify all the premises at the time of applying for the warrant. An all-premises warrant will allow access to all premises occupied or controlled by that person, both those that are specified on the application, and those that are not; this allows for follow-up searches where evidence at one premises controlled by the named person identifies a second premises associated with that person.