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Which court will deal with my criminal case? Criminal Law FAQs - LocalSolicitors.com

Which court will deal with my criminal case?

There are certain situations in which an individual is authorised to make an arrest of another without having a warrant to do so. This is referred to as a citizen's arrest and encompasses times when a member of the public arrests a suspected criminal or directs a police officer to do so.

It is important to recognise that to make a legal citizen's arrest, individuals must abide by set rules. If a citizen's arrest is made outside of the rules, the individual may be liable for civil or criminal action against them. In England and Wales, the law states that a member of the public can arrest anyone "who is in the act of committing an indictable offence; or whom the person has reasonable grounds to suspect is committing an indictable offence."

The law does not clearly outline a list of indictable offences, though such an offence can be summarised as being one that is heard by a Crown court and assessed by a jury. Some examples of relevant crimes include:

 * Theft
 * Burglary
 * Criminal damage

The citizen's arrest can only legally be made if it is reasonable to believe that a police constable will not be able to make the arrest themselves. The member of the public is obliged to tell the person that they are arresting that they are doing so, the crime for which they are making the arrest and the reason for the arrest. The law allows a ‘reasonable level of force' to be applied in a citizen's arrest, though there is no specific guidance on what is considered to be ‘reasonable'. Therefore, sound judgement should be applied by anybody attempting to make a citizen's arrest to avoid any potential charges being made against them.

What is a citizen's arrest?

I assume that your son was interviewed under caution by the police and that at that at the conclusion of the interview, the decision was made to dispose of the case by way of a formal youth caution, triggering the notification requirement (informally called the sex offenders register). If that is the case, for your son to have been made subejct of the youth caution (trigering the notification requirement) there had to be adimissions to an offence in the police interview. If he didn't in fact admit the offence, then the caution would have been wholly inapropriate and yes, there may be the possibility of having the caution removed from his record and the notification requirement with it. If however, he did indeed make admissions (ie covered for his brother) then it would not really be feasible to have the caution and notification requirement removed.

Getting Removed from the Sex offenders register

Which court will deal with my criminal case?

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