The Fake Police Stop

The fake police stop is nothing new but it has attracted attention from the now Prime Minister Teresa May while she was Secretary for State and this relates to both the stop and search and for traffic stops, it would appear that section 165 of the road traffic act is the default setting police use when making a fake stop, or put simply they lie to try to justify an unlawful stop, so what do those in charge say.

There are two bodies responsible, one is HMIC who are Her Majestys Inspectorate of Constabularies and have responsibility for the inspection and monitoring of constabularies; and there is the College of Policing who set the policies for constabularies and interpret their definitions and the manner in which any new legislation is used by the constabularies.

HMIC have found that constabularies are abusing legislation and using it for purposes it was never intended to be used for and passed the information to the College of Policing and they have agreed to make constabularies reduce such things as the Section 60 stop and search, but Section 165 of the Road Traffic Act is the one they are really targetting as the College of Policing has identified this as an abuse of legislation so what do they say on the matter:

No vehicle may be stopped (except in certain circumstances) unless there is "reasonable cause" which they have defined as "about to commit a crime" or "in the act of committing a crime" or the constable has reasonable suspicion that " a crime is about to be committed" and that any constable must have "reasonable justification" to believe any of the aforementioned.

They further claim that Section 165 of the Road Traffic Act is not a power to stop a vehicle on its own as it is only a power available to a constable to obtain a driver or the occupants of a vehicles details AFTER A LAWFUL STOP HAS OCCURED, this means if you are stopped and suspect it is an unlawful stop you have the right to know the reason for the stop and they are obliged to give you this reason, and this must be a specific reason and not the vague and ambiguous language they use to try to get you to believe something.

Unalwful stops:

Its a routine stop sir! no such thing, illegal, no reasonable suspicion of a crime having been committed or about to be committed.

Its about your manner of driving sir! again not a reason to stop, vague and unspecific, ambiguity.

You went through a red light sir! this is a trick and many people fall for it and reply "it was amber" and you have admitted committing an offence as you can only go through a green light.

Police constables have a number of resources available to them and the main one is the PNC check, this is the Police National Computer and gives the following information:

Name and address of the registered keeper:
Insurance details:
Tax details:
MOT details:
If the registered keeper is a firearms licence holder:

Currently there is a trend among many forces to make vehicle stops with "no reasonable suspicion" to gather the occupants details for the purposes of "intelligence" and this is an unlawful stop so you have no obligation to even speak to them or give them anything as this is a Section 163 stop and the law is very clear on this. They use tactics such as "we need to check your details sir" when there is no need to check your details as they already know your vehicle is taxed, MOT'd and insured, and if you are a firearms holder, and for anything else they have to have reasonable suspicion.

They gather information for one purpose, for their own manipulation; let me explain. When they make a stop and you give your details it goes to a police employed psychologist and they form a profile of you based upon a stop and this profile will determine many things and in most cases these profiles are loaded in favour of the police to give them reasonable suspicion of something.

Example: you work shifts or odd times as you do overtime, you travel through an area known for a specific type of crime on your route to work and home, the police have seen you; they them form a profile of you and suddenly you are seen in a crime hotspot and they ASSUME you are a criminal engaging in that specific crime and suddenly in their eyes you change from being an honest individual to a criminal and they treat you as such, but why? because of your route to work and their biased profiling.

Thanks for that assassin, After your previous post I was looking at section 165 this morning .The extra info here is very useful.

HMIC and College of Policing are excellent sites of reference as not only do they state the legislation, but how the legislation is to be applied Dave.