Immediate post-interview outcomes: searches, samples, release and charge

After interview, reassess status. Continued detention requires both a continuing statutory ground and lawful time authority. The outcome may be further lawful investigation in custody, no further action, release under investigationGlossary termRelease under investigation, pre-charge bailGlossary termPre-charge bail, an available out-of-court disposal, or charge. These are not interchangeable labels, and finishing interview does not itself decide which applies. Authority: PACE, sections 34, 37–44 and 50A; Code C, section 16; Director's Guidance on Charging, parts 4 and 8.

Searches and samples: classify before advising

Detention does not create one general evidence-gathering power. A search examines the person for an item; a sample takes material or an impression for analysis; fingerprints are separately regulated. Intimate search and intimate sample are different statutory concepts. A recordable offence, used in sample and fingerprint provisions, is an offence within the prescribed police-recording category; do not substitute the indictable-offence test used for extending detention. Authority: PACE, sections 54–55 and Part V; Code C, Annex A; Code D, sections 4 and 6.

Authority for the table: PACE, sections 54, 55, 61–63; Code C, Annex A; Code D, sections 4 and 6, especially paragraphs 6.2–6.8.

For strip searches, the normal safeguards include an appropriate adult for a child or vulnerable person, and the required other attendance and sex/privacy arrangements. The emergency exception concerns an urgent risk of serious harm, not routine convenience. A juvenile's express wish to exclude the appropriate adult must be made in that adult's presence, agreed by the adult and properly recorded; this narrow search provision must not be converted into a general waiver of interview safeguards. Authority: Code C, Annex A, paragraphs 10–11.

An intimate sample includes blood, semen, urine, pubic hair, a dental impression and the specified swabs from genitals or other body orifices apart from the mouth. A mouth swab is non-intimate. Dental impressions require a registered dentist; other intimate samples, apart from urine, must be taken by a registered medical practitioner, registered nurse or registered paramedic. The definition of the material and the qualification of its taker are separate questions. Explain the purpose, authority, proposed use, consent and any lawful refusal warning before obtaining the sample. Authority: Code D, paragraphs 6.1–6.4.

For children, distinguish the appropriate adult's supporting role from the person legally entitled to consent, as explained in section 6. Under section 62, refusal of an intimate sample without good cause can have evidential consequences after the required information and warning; that does not make forced taking lawful. Conversely, refusal does not prevent a non-intimate sample where a valid non-consensual gateway and necessary-force conditions exist. Authority: PACE, sections 62–63; Code D, paragraphs 2.12, 6.3 and 6.6–6.8.

Solicitor action. Identify the proposed act and body site, offence category, statutory gateway, purpose, required rank, consent, warning, attendance and recording duties. Request an explanation and record an objection where a condition is missing. Explain consequences accurately without presenting refusal as either consequence-free or invariably criminal. For visual identification, preserve the witness's first description and any image exposure before a formal procedure; method selection, comparisons and trial reliability are developed in the next identification chapter. Forensic sampling must not be mistaken for testing a witness's visual memory. Authority: Code D, paragraphs 3.1–3.2 and sections 4 and 6.

Pre-charge bail and release under investigation

Pre-charge bail is investigative release before charge with a duty to attend as required. It may be conditional or unconditional. Under section 50A, the custody officer must be satisfied that bail is necessary and proportionate in all the circumstances and must consider representations by the person or legal representative. The assessment includes securing attendance, preventing offending, protecting victims and witnesses, safeguarding the suspect where vulnerable and managing risks to the public. Conditions require lawful justification; they are not punishment in advance of charge. Obtain the actual condition, reason, return appointment and arrangements for seeking variation rather than agreeing to an unexplained standard set. Authority: PACE, sections 47 and 50A.

Bail time is not the detention clock. For the ordinary, current police case, the initial applicable bail period is three months beginning with the day after arrest for the relevant offence. An inspector or above can extend the standard period to six months, and a superintendent or above to nine months, before the relevant existing period ends and on the statutory conditions. Those conditions concern reasonable suspicion, a need for further investigation or a charging decision, diligent and expeditious handling, and necessity and proportionality of bail; representations must be considered. Authority: PACE, sections 47ZB–47ZDA, as amended with effect from 28 October 2022, subject to the transitional provisions.

This is a standard-case route, not a universal maximum. Specified specialist-agency cases begin with a different period; designated exceptionally complex cases and court extensions have their own routes. Statutory provisions also affect computation where the case is referred for a charging decision or there is a pending extension application. On receipt of a proposed return date or extension, check the arrest date, the route, prior authorisations, representations and any claimed exclusion or deemed extension. Do not infer that a scheduled appointment itself authorises bail beyond the applicable period, or that nine months is the maximum duration of every investigation. Authority: PACE, sections 47ZB and 47ZDB–47ZM.

Release under investigation (RUI) is release without pre-charge bail while the investigation continues. There are no bail conditions and no fixed bail-return appointment under that release, but this is not no further action (NFA). NFA records a decision not to proceed at that point; even it should not be described as an acquittal or an absolute promise that fresh evidence can never lead to prosecution. For RUI, obtain the offence, investigating officer or unit, contact arrangements, position on seized property and a realistic review plan. Preserve evidence and keep contact details current. These practical review arrangements are not an invented statutory RUI deadline. Authority: PACE, sections 37, 41(7)–(9), 43(20)–(22) and the release provisions; Code C, section 16.

Charge and the prosecution tests

The custody officer's evidence assessment and the allocation of charging responsibility under PACE sections 37–37A must be distinguished from the prosecutor's decision under the applicable charging test. The current Director's Guidance on Charging, sixth edition, allocates specified cases to the police and others to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Police authority is not established simply because an offence is summary: categories such as domestic abuse and hate crime have referral requirements. Where one proposed offence requires a prosecutor's decision, related offences are referred together. Authority: Director's Guidance on Charging, paragraphs 4.3–4.5 and Annex 1, paragraphs 1–3.

The Full Code Test has two stages: sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction, then whether prosecution is required in the public interest. The evidential test is an objective assessment that a properly directed tribunal is more likely than not to convict. It is not the trial standard, under which the tribunal must be sure of guilt. Seriousness cannot substitute for the evidential stage. Authority: Code for Crown Prosecutors, paragraphs 4.1–4.14.

The Threshold Test is an exceptional, temporary route where the Full Code Test is not yet met. All five conditions must be satisfied: reasonable grounds to suspect the offence; identifiable further evidence capable of producing a realistic prospect within a reasonable time; seriousness or circumstances justifying immediate charge; continuing substantial grounds properly to oppose bail; and public interest in charging. It is not a remedy for an avoidable failure to investigate before the clock expires. Keep the decision under review and apply the Full Code Test as soon as the anticipated material is obtained. Authority: Code for Crown Prosecutors, paragraphs 5.1–5.11.

On charge, give the defendant written particulars, using understandable language while identifying the precise offence, and apply the appropriate-adult requirements. The caution at charge ordinarily warns about failing to mention now something later relied on, unless the applicable inference restriction requires modification. Do not confuse that moment with questioning after charge. Authority: Code C, paragraphs 16.2–16.4 and Annex C; CJPOA, section 34(1)(b).

Interview about the charged offence is then exceptional. Code C permits it where necessary to prevent or minimise harm or loss to another person or the public; clear an ambiguity in an earlier answer or statement; or put genuinely new information arising after charge where the interests of justice require an opportunity to comment. Before such questioning use the post-charge, two-limb caution, without the adverse-inference warning, and remind the defendant of legal advice. It is not an opportunity to repeat the entire investigation because earlier answers were unsatisfactory. Authority: Code C, paragraph 16.5 and Annex C.

After charge, decide release or detention under the post-charge provisions and move to first-court procedures. The child safeguards continue: where a child is detained after charge, transfer to local-authority accommodation is the statutory starting point, with defined exceptions and certification requirements—not an assumption that the same police cell is suitable overnight. Court bail, remand and the detailed youth route require the separate rules governing those stages. Authority: PACE, section 38, particularly subsection (6); Code C, paragraph 16.7.

Why the station record matters at trial

Preserve the station record for the later evidential challenge. Apply the full confession and fairness tests in Chapter 6, sections 2–5, rather than treating every breach as automatic exclusion. Establish the safeguard, what happened and its practical consequence.

Application. If a required appropriate adult was absent, a client was in withdrawal, advice was denied or a warning was defective, preserve the facts establishing that problem: age or functional difficulty, requests and refusals, medical observations, who authorised what, exact times, original recording and the words used. Then distinguish the legal routes: a confession challenge under section 76, fairness under section 78, a statutory bar to a particular inference, or an issue about the evidence's weight. The later court needs that evidence, not merely the label “PACE breach”. Excluding a confession also does not automatically exclude every fact discovered as a result: section 76(4) contains a distinct rule. Authority: PACE, sections 76 and 78; CJPOA, sections 34–38.

For identification, the parallel task is to preserve the witness's earliest description, prior exposure to the suspect or images, procedure choice and objections. The next chapter develops the Code D process and the separate questions of admissibility, reliability and trial directions. Lawful interviewing, lawful identification and a fair trial are connected safeguards, not interchangeable tests. Authority: Code D, paragraphs 3.1–3.3; PACE, section 78.