Drugs Enforcement
There are specific powers of search, detention of persons and vehicles in the Misuse of Drugs Legislation. There are enhanced powers for enforcement.
A police constable may detain and search a person, vehicle, or vessel for controlled drugs. It is an offence to obstruct a constable or another person in the exercise of their powers. It is an offence to conceal any books, documents, stocks, or drugs, or without reasonable excuse fail to produce any documents or books as demanded by the person exercising their powers.
If the constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that any person is in possession of a controlled drug in contravention of the Misuse of Drugs Act, the constable may search the person, detain them for the purpose of searching.
Search any vehicle or vessel which the constable suspects the drugs may be found or for the purpose requiring a person in control of a vehicle or vessel to stop it.
Seized items are detained for the purpose of proceedings, anything found in the course of the search which may be evidence of the commission of an offence.
A warrant may issue for a constable to enter premises by force, to search the premises for controlled drugs. There is no general right to question the suspect incidental to the power.
The Proceeds of Crime Act permits confiscation or a restraint order. It deals with the recovery of property and money laundering. A person who has a criminal lifestyle in accordance with certain criteria set out in the legislation may be subject to a confiscation order.
A person who has a criminal lifestyle and is found in circumstances where the offences must fall into the below-mentioned category of criminal lifestyle offences and constitute a course of criminal activity and be an offence committed over a period of at least six months, and the defendant has benefitted from the conduct which constitutes the offence.
The conduct forms part of the course of the criminal activity if the defendant has benefitted from the conduct and then the proceedings in which he was convicted, he was convicted of three or more offences each, of which three or more of them constitute conduct from which he has benefitted or in a period of six years ending on the day on which the proceedings were started, he is convicted of at least at least two separate occasions of offences constituting conduct from which he has benefitted. The offence does not satisfy the test if he has received benefits of less than £5,000.
Benefits include benefits from conduct which constitutes the offence, benefits from other conduct which forms part of a course of criminal activity which constitutes the offence, benefits from conduct which constitutes an offence, which has been or would be taken into consideration by the court in sentencing.
The legislation provides for the confiscation of the proceeds of crime where persons are living off crime and explaining the source of their assets.
Lifestyle offences include drug trafficking offences money laundering offences, people trafficking, directing terrorism, arms trafficking, counterfeiting intellectual property, prostitution and child sex, and blackmail