Your rights if you are arrested

An arrest is not lawful merely because an officer suspects you of something. Section 24 of PACE requires two separate things: reasonable grounds to suspect that you are about to commit, are committing or are guilty of an offence, and reasonable grounds to believe that arresting you is necessary for one of the statutory reasons — establishing your name or address, preventing injury or damage, protecting a vulnerable person, allowing a prompt and effective investigation, or preventing your disappearance. Reasonable suspicion on its own is not enough. Necessity is a second hurdle, and it is the one most often argued about afterwards.

At the point of arrest the officer must identify themselves, tell you that you are under arrest, tell you what offence you are suspected of, explain why the arrest is necessary and make clear that you are not free to leave. GOV.UK sets out all five. If you try to escape or become violent, reasonable force may be used, you may be handcuffed, and you may be searched. None of that is a licence to skip the explanation, and an officer who cannot say what the offence is has a problem, not you.

You are then taken to a police station and put in front of a custody officer, who is a different officer from the ones investigating and whose job under section 37 of PACE is to decide whether there is already enough evidence to charge you. If there is not, the custody officer can only authorise your detention if there are reasonable grounds to believe that keeping you is necessary to secure or preserve evidence relating to the offence, or to obtain evidence by questioning you. The grounds must be written down, normally in your presence.

That written record is the custody record, and it is the single most useful document in the whole process. Every material event goes on it: the time you arrived, the grounds for detention, whether you asked for a solicitor and when, when a solicitor was contacted and when they arrived, every review, every meal, every interview, every complaint. It is the timeline your solicitor will work from and the timeline a court will look at if the detention is challenged later.

You are also given a written notice telling you what your rights are. GOV.UK confirms that this notice covers entitlements such as breaks for food and using the toilet, and that it is available in your language or through an interpreter. Your possessions are taken and held by the custody officer. If you are under 18 you must not be put in a cell with an adult, and female detainees under 18 must be supervised by female staff.

Two practical things are worth doing immediately, before anything else. Ask what offence you have been arrested for and ask for the answer to be recorded on the custody record. And say — out loud, to the custody officer, before you are taken anywhere — that you want the duty solicitor. Everything that follows in this guide is easier if those two sentences are in the record with a time next to them.

Ask for a solicitor, by name if you have one and by the words 'duty solicitor' if you do not. Section 58 of PACE gives a person arrested and held in custody the entitlement, on request, to consult a solicitor privately at any time. GOV.UK confirms the practical version: legal advice at a police station is free legal aid, the duty solicitor is available 24 hours a day and is independent of the police, and you can instead ask the police to contact your own solicitor. For less serious offences you may be offered advice by telephone, which is also free and also independent.

Do not decline it because you think it will slow things down. Once you have asked for legal advice the police cannot question you until you have had it, save in defined serious cases, and GOV.UK states that the longest you can be made to wait before getting legal advice is 36 hours after arriving at the police station, or 48 hours for suspected terrorism. In an ordinary case the duty solicitor turns up in a matter of hours, not days, and a solicitor who is already instructed is a reason for the investigating officers to get on with the interview rather than a reason to delay it.

Ask for someone to be told where you are. Section 56 gives you the right to have one friend, relative or other person known to you or likely to take an interest in your welfare told, as soon as practicable, that you have been arrested and where you are being held. This is not a phone call you get to make yourself and it is not a favour — it is a statutory entitlement, and it is what allows someone outside to instruct a solicitor of their own choosing, arrange childcare, tell your employer, or bring your medication.

Ask to see the Codes of Practice. The right to see the rules the police must follow sits alongside the other two on GOV.UK's own list of custody rights. The Home Office publishes eight codes: Code A on stop and search, Code B on searching premises and seizure, Code C on the detention, treatment and questioning of non-terrorism suspects, Code D on identification, Code E on audio recording of interviews, Code F on visual recording, Code G on the statutory power of arrest, and Code H on terrorism detention. Code C is the one that governs how you are treated in the cell and the interview room.

Both of the first two rights can be delayed, but only narrowly and only by a senior officer. Delay to legal advice under section 58 requires an officer of at least superintendent rank and can only be authorised where there are reasonable grounds to believe that exercising the right would lead to interference with or harm to evidence, or physical injury, or would alert other suspects not yet arrested, or would hinder the recovery of property or of the proceeds of crime. Delay to having someone informed under section 56 requires an officer of at least inspector rank, on the same kinds of grounds, and only for an indictable offence. Both rights must be permitted within 36 hours of the relevant time whatever has been authorised.

If you said no at the desk, you can change your mind. GOV.UK is explicit that you can change your decision about legal advice at any point, and that an appropriate adult can ask for a solicitor on behalf of someone under 18 or a vulnerable adult. Nobody is bound by a refusal given while frightened, drunk, exhausted or halfway through a panic attack — and if you refuse advice, PACE Code C requires the reason to be recorded, which is a good moment to think again.

If you are the person outside, ring the police station's non-emergency number, confirm the person is there, give the custody sergeant the name of a solicitor if you have one, and ask that the detained person be told you have called. You cannot instruct a solicitor for an adult against their wishes, but you can make sure that a named firm is offered and that the offer is on the custody record.

The caution given before questioning is not a formality and it is not the American one. It warns you that you do not have to say anything, but that it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you later rely on in court, and that anything you do say may be given in evidence. Those middle words are doing the work, and they exist because of section 34 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

Section 34 provides that where a person fails to mention, when questioned under caution or on being charged, a fact later relied on in their defence, the court, judge or jury may draw such inferences from the failure as appear proper in determining guilt. It does not convict anybody on its own — an inference is not evidence of the offence — but it allows a jury to be invited to ask why the explanation you are giving now was not given then. In a case that turns on credibility, that invitation matters a great deal.

There is a second and less well known provision. Section 36 of the same Act deals with objects, substances or marks: if you are arrested, something is found on you, on your clothing or footwear, or in your possession, and an officer who reasonably believes it may be attributable to your participation in an offence asks you to account for it, a failure or refusal to do so can also produce an inference. The officer must first tell you in ordinary language what the effect of refusing will be. A parallel provision covers a failure to account for your presence at a particular place.

Both provisions carry the same safeguard, and it is the most important sentence in this section of the page. Section 34(2A) and section 36(4A) disapply the inference entirely where the person was at an authorised place of detention and had not been allowed an opportunity to consult a solicitor before being questioned or before the request was made. In other words, the adverse inference machinery is switched off if you were denied access to advice — and switched on if you were offered it and turned it down.

This is why 'no comment' is not the simple, cost-free choice it is often assumed to be. Answering no questions at all is sometimes exactly the right advice, particularly where disclosure from the police has been thin, where the account is complex, or where the suspect is unwell, intoxicated or unable to give a reliable account. But it is a tactical decision that depends on what the police have disclosed, and it is not a decision anyone should be making alone in an interview room.

The middle route that solicitors use frequently is a prepared written statement: the facts you want on the record are set out, signed, and handed in, and questions are then declined. That puts the account in at the earliest opportunity — which is what section 34 is about — without exposing you to hours of cross-examination on a poor night's sleep. Whether it is right in your case depends on the disclosure, which is precisely the thing your solicitor sees and you do not.

One further point that catches people out: interviews are audio recorded under Code E, and may be visually recorded under Code F. There is no off-the-record conversation in a police station. Remarks made in a corridor, in a cell or in a van can be written up in an officer's notebook and put to you later, and 'significant statements' made outside interview are routinely read back at the start of the recorded interview.

Section 41 of PACE sets the basic rule: a person shall not be kept in police detention for more than 24 hours without being charged. The 24 hours does not run from your arrest. It runs from what the Act calls the relevant time, which for most arrests is the moment you arrive at the first police station you are taken to after arrest. If you attended voluntarily and were arrested at the station, it runs from the arrest. Where someone is arrested outside England and Wales there are separate rules, but the general effect is the same — the clock starts on arrival, so a long journey in the back of a van is time you do not get back.

GOV.UK states the headline position that police can hold you for up to 24 hours before they have to charge you or release you, that they can apply to hold you for up to 36 or 96 hours if you are suspected of a serious crime such as murder, and that a person arrested under the Terrorism Act can be held without charge for up to 14 days. The mechanics behind those numbers are worth knowing, because each step has a different decision-maker and each gives you a chance to be heard.

The first extension is administrative. Under section 42, an officer of the rank of superintendent or above may authorise continued detention up to 36 hours from the relevant time, but only where they have reasonable grounds for believing that detention is necessary to secure or preserve evidence or obtain it by questioning, that the offence is indictable, and that the investigation is being conducted diligently and expeditiously. Before authorising it, the superintendent must give you or your solicitor the opportunity to make representations, orally or in writing. Solicitors do make them, and they are sometimes successful.

Beyond 36 hours the decision leaves the police entirely. Under section 43 a constable must apply on oath to a magistrates' court for a warrant of further detention, you must be brought before the court, and you are entitled to be legally represented at the hearing — if you are not represented but want to be, the court must adjourn so that you can get representation. A warrant cannot authorise more than 36 further hours, and section 44 governs extensions of it, with GOV.UK giving 96 hours as the outer limit for serious crime.

Running alongside all of that is a separate and often overlooked safeguard: the review. Section 40 requires detention to be reviewed by an inspector or above who has not been directly involved in the investigation. The first review must be no later than six hours after detention was first authorised, the second no later than nine hours after that, and subsequent reviews at intervals of no more than nine hours. At each one, you — unless you are asleep — or your solicitor must be given the opportunity to make representations about the detention. Reviews can be postponed where it is not practicable to hold them, for example mid-interview.

When the time expires, the custody officer must act. Section 41 requires release either on bail, where the statutory pre-conditions for bail are satisfied, or without bail where they are not, and you cannot be re-arrested for the same offence without new evidence coming to light. GOV.UK lists the three outcomes at the end of custody as release, release on police bail, or release under investigation.

The practical instruction is straightforward. Note the time you arrived at the station and check it against the custody record, because the whole clock hangs off it. Ask your solicitor to make representations at every review and at any superintendent's authorisation, and ask for it to be recorded that they were made. Detention that has drifted past a review without one is exactly the sort of thing a court is interested in later.

Anyone under 18 in police custody must have an appropriate adult, and so must an adult who is vulnerable — broadly, someone who because of a mental health condition, learning disability, brain injury, autism or another impairment may not understand the significance of what is said to them or of their own answers. GOV.UK states the duty directly: the police must find an appropriate adult to protect the interests, rights and welfare of a person who needs one.

The role is set out in PACE Code C, and it is easily misunderstood by everyone involved, including officers. The National Appropriate Adult Network, the charity that supports and develops the service in England and Wales, describes the function as safeguarding the welfare, rights and effective participation of children and vulnerable adults detained or questioned as suspects. That last word — participation — is the point. An appropriate adult is not a passive observer sitting in the corner. They are there to make sure the person understands what is happening, to intervene if questioning is unfair or confusing, and to ask for a solicitor if the detained person has not.

Certain interviews and procedures should not go ahead without one, and an appropriate adult can request legal advice on behalf of the person even if that person has declined it. Where the detained person is under 18, GOV.UK also says that a parent, guardian or carer must be contacted as soon as possible after arrival at the police station, and that police should only arrest a child at school where it is unavoidable, in which case the headteacher must be told.

Custody itself is different for under-18s. As GOV.UK sets out on its list of rights in custody, a person under 18 must not be put in a cell with adults, and a female detainee under 18 must be supervised by female staff. Those are minimum standards, not discretionary courtesies, and they should appear on the custody record.

One thing families should understand clearly: an appropriate adult is not a lawyer and their presence is not a substitute for one. They cannot give legal advice, and conversations in front of them do not have the protection that a consultation with a solicitor has. A parent sitting in an interview is doing an important job, but it is not the solicitor's job, and both should be in the room.

The service is patchy for adults. For children, local authority youth offending teams have a statutory role in providing appropriate adults; for vulnerable adults there is no equivalent statutory duty on any single body across England and Wales, and provision varies from area to area — which is one reason the identification of vulnerability in the custody suite matters so much.

You are charged. GOV.UK explains that you are then given a charge sheet setting out the details of the offence, and the police decide whether to release you until your court hearing or keep you in custody to be produced at court. The first hearing after a charge is always at a magistrates' court, even where the trial will later be in the Crown Court, and for a defendant under 18 it is normally the youth court, where a youth offending team member is involved in the bail and custody decisions. Minor matters can be dealt with by a single justice procedure notice, which requires a response within 21 days and no court appearance.

You are bailed after charge. GOV.UK lists the conditions that can be attached: living at a particular address, not contacting certain people, surrendering your passport so you cannot leave the UK, and reporting to a police station at agreed times. Breaching them is serious — you can be arrested again and taken to prison to wait for the hearing. Conditions can be varied, but by application, not by informal agreement with an officer.

You are released on pre-charge bail. This is the version people find hardest to understand, because you have not been charged with anything and yet you are subject to conditions and a date to return. Section 47ZB of PACE sets an applicable bail period of three months from the bail start date in ordinary cases, and six months where the investigation is being conducted by the Financial Conduct Authority, HM Revenue and Customs, the National Crime Agency or the Serious Fraud Office. The bail start date is the day after the day of arrest, and the period can be extended under sections 47ZD to 47ZG.

You are released under investigation. GOV.UK lists this as one of the three ways custody can end. There are no conditions, no return date and no statutory clock — the investigation simply continues, and you may hear nothing for months. It is not an acquittal, it is not a decision not to prosecute, and it does not stop the police from re-arresting you or sending you a postal requisition to attend court. If you are told you are being released under investigation, ask for that to be confirmed in writing and keep your solicitor's details, because the next contact may be a summons.

Or the matter ends. Where the custody officer determines there is not sufficient evidence to charge, section 37 of PACE requires release on bail or without bail, and the custody officer must give written notice that you will not be prosecuted — with the important qualification, stated in the section itself, that prosecution remains possible if new evidence later comes to light. This is what 'no further action' means in practice: closure, not immunity.

One consequence outlasts all four outcomes, and people are consistently unprepared for it. An arrest generates a police record whether or not you are ever charged, and while it will not appear on a basic or standard DBS check, an enhanced check allows a chief officer to disclose non-conviction information they reasonably believe to be relevant. If you work, or want to work, in a role that requires an enhanced check, that is a conversation to have with your solicitor before you leave the station, not eighteen months later when a certificate arrives.

Whichever route you are on, ask three questions before you walk out: which of the four this is, what the date or period is, and who at the force is the point of contact. Ask for the answers to go on the custody record. Detainees are handed a great deal of paper at release and remember almost none of it.

Scotland does not use PACE at all. Police powers of arrest and the treatment of people in custody are governed by Part 1 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016, which replaced the old system of detention with a single power of arrest and came into force in January 2018. The structure is genuinely different, not a Scottish edition of the same rules, and reading English guidance into a Scottish custody suite will mislead you on almost every timescale.

The clock is half as long. Section 9 sets a general 12-hour limit: once a person has been held in police custody for a continuous period of 12 hours beginning with the time authorisation was given, they can only be kept if a constable charges them, if authorisation for further custody has been given under section 11, or if they are being held in connection with a breach of bail conditions.

The extension is tighter than the English equivalent too. Under section 11 the authorisation must come from an inspector or above — a chief inspector or above where the person is under 18 — who has not been involved in the investigation, and who is satisfied that the statutory test in section 14 will still be met, that the offence is indictable, and that the investigation is being conducted diligently and expeditiously. It buys a further 12 hours, which means 24 hours in total rather than the English 36 or 96, and it cannot be used twice for the same or a related offence.

Reviews are built in as well. Section 13 requires a custody review by a constable of at least inspector rank who has not been involved in the investigation, after six continuous hours under the initial authorisation and again after six continuous hours under any section 11 authorisation, considering whether the section 14 test is still met.

The right to a solicitor is expressed even more broadly than in England. Section 44 gives a person in police custody the right to have a private consultation with a solicitor at any time, and makes clear that consultation includes contact by telephone where that is what the circumstances allow. It can only be delayed in exceptional circumstances where necessary in the interests of the investigation, the prevention of crime or the apprehension of offenders, and the authorisation must come from an officer of at least sergeant rank who has not been involved in the investigation — a lower rank than the English superintendent, but a narrower and more explicitly exceptional test.

Intimation works differently for children. Section 38 gives a person in custody the right to have intimation sent to a named adult that they are in custody and where — but where the person is under 16, a parent, guardian or carer must be told whether or not the child asks. Delay can be authorised by a sergeant or above who has not been involved in the investigation, for investigative reasons or, in the case of an under-18, to safeguard them, and safeguarding delay is limited to the time needed to establish whether the local authority will arrange a visit or give advice.

Criminal legal assistance in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, not the Legal Aid Agency, and the Scottish scheme has its own rules, its own duty arrangements and its own financial tests. If the arrest happened in Scotland, the solicitor you need is a Scottish criminal solicitor registered for legal aid work, and SLAB is the body to ask.

Northern Ireland has its own version of PACE and it is a separate instrument: the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989. The architecture will look familiar to anyone who knows the English Act, because it was deliberately modelled on it. Article 35 sets limitations on police detention, Article 41 requires reviews of detention with Article 41A allowing them to be conducted by telephone, Articles 42 to 45 govern the periods of detention and continued detention, Article 57 gives the right to have someone informed when arrested and Article 59 gives access to legal advice. Articles 37 to 39 set out the duties of custody officers before and after charge.

The practical point is that the numbering is different and so is the case law, so a Northern Irish solicitor arguing about detention will be citing Articles, not sections. Do not assume a rule you read about in an English guide has an identical Northern Irish counterpart without checking the Order.

Criminal legal aid in Northern Ireland is also structured differently. nidirect explains that legal aid for criminal court cases is granted by the court rather than by an agency, that it is only available to a person charged with a criminal offence, and that the decision turns on your financial circumstances and on whether it is in the interests of justice. The scheme is administered by the Legal Services Agency Northern Ireland under the Department of Justice, which publishes the guidance for both practitioners and the public.

If you believe you were treated unlawfully, there are two separate routes and they do different things. The first is a complaint. In England and Wales, complaints are handled in the first instance by the force's own professional standards department; the Independent Office for Police Conduct oversees the system and independently investigates only the most serious and sensitive matters, and where you are unhappy with the outcome or the handling you can apply for a review or appeal. Scotland has the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, which independently investigates serious incidents and allegations of criminality by on-duty officers and can review how a police body handled a complaint — but only once you have complained to the force and received its final response, and only within three months of it. Northern Ireland has the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, which is a separate body again.

The second route is not a complaint at all, and it is usually the more powerful one. Breaches of PACE and the Codes go to the admissibility of evidence. Section 76 of PACE deals with confessions obtained by oppression or in circumstances likely to render them unreliable, and section 78 gives the court a discretion to refuse prosecution evidence where admitting it would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that it ought not to be admitted. That argument is made by your defence solicitor in the criminal case, not by a complaint form, and it can be worth far more to you than an apology.

Either way, get the custody record. It is the contemporaneous account of what was authorised, when, and by whom, and it is the document on which every later argument about detention, access to advice or the timing of reviews will be built. Your solicitor can obtain it as part of the case; if there is no ongoing case, a subject access request under data protection law is the route, and there are things a force may lawfully withhold, so ask for it early rather than late.

Finally, keep in mind what none of this changes. A complaint does not stop an investigation, a successful section 78 argument does not undo an arrest record, and none of these routes runs to your timetable. The measures that make the largest difference are the ones taken in the first hour — asking for the solicitor, having someone told, and getting the times on the record.