Is a single police officer legally allowed to arrest a woman who is alone?

[impossible]

Does anyone know if a single police officer is allowed to arrest a woman who is alone and put her in a vehicle? Or for that matter is it legal for a single officer to arrest a male and confine him?

I'm thinking about what happened to Sarah Everard and wondering what the rules are. I think it's important that we all know in case something like that that situation happens again. Certainly I would like to be able to tell my dcs their rights.

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead

Oh my god I've just read the paper. It makes me weep for the 99.9999% of police officers out there that are good, upstanding human beings that joined up to help people. Like DH

I'm afraid the number isn't anywhere near that high.

90% is probably being generous

As for the advice to call the control room: how do you do that? I can't even call my local police station. I can only call the county and last time I rang them, I was on hold for 10 minutes before I got answered.

The thing is that all these ideas will work fine if it's a genuine police officer carrying out their legitimate role. It won't make things easy for the Police to do their job, but it will reassure you. But this man was not doing his legitimate job. He was setting out to kidnap, rape and murder.

So what would Sarah do? 'Officer, I'm not feeling very comfortable as a lone woman, so I'll stand here quietly while you contact the station to confirm your role.' Him 'Oh, ok...well I'll be off then, because I'm not legitimately carrying out my role.' No. He would have just shoved her in the car.

A couple witnessed the kidnap. They thought it was unusual, but it didn't ring alarm bells.

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead

Oh my god I've just read the paper. It makes me weep for the 99.9999% of police officers out there that are good, upstanding human beings that joined up to help people. Like DH

Fucking hell. Not the attacked women? What’s wrong with you?

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead

Oh my god I've just read the paper. It makes me weep for the 99.9999% of police officers out there that are good, upstanding human beings that joined up to help people. Like DH

Yeah, because the worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad....

Are you serious, you read this story in the paper today and you wept for your husband?

I worked as a benefit fraud investigator for DHSS a few years ago and as such had regular liaison with the police, who used to take on our most serious cases cases to prosecute. Over about a 6 year period I was propositioned by just about every male police officer I ever came into contact with. They didn't give a shit if they knew you knew they were married or if they knew you were married. They tried anyway. Endlessly and relentlessly. It became very tiresome. I got very used to rebuffing their efforts, more politely than I would have liked, but I shouldn't have had to.

Even when our car was stolen the PC who came round to take a statement from me and DP asked me out via text a couple of days later. That is some privilege there! He sat next to me and DP, now husband, to take a statement about our car theft and then texted me to ask me out.

Can't exactly say I'm surprised to find a rapist and murderer was recruited to be a police officer.

While I'm sure it's not representative of the nation, personally, I have known more people beaten up by police (and I mean with broken bones and missing teeth rather than bruises, women included) than helped by them. I didn't trust them before and I still don't.

@Clymene

As for the advice to call the control room: how do you do that? I can't even call my local police station. I can only call the county and last time I rang them, I was on hold for 10 minutes before I got answered.

Yes. There’s absolutely nothing that women can do about this.

It has to come from the Met. We need to hold our police service to much, much higher standards. Misogyny is endemic in the police force and it has to be stopped.

DaphneDeloresMoorhead - I think this is one of the problems with underfunded police, unclear rules and a culture that allows people to turn a blind eye. Nobody wins - not the the public and not the decent police officers.

@Passmeamenuatthetottenham

I still feel sick at this whole thing. I am a very compliant person, as are most women probably. If I had been stopped by a 'policeman' for breaching Covid rules and he told me he was going to have to arrest me, I'm pretty sure I would have been horrified and totally gone along with it, feeling terrible that I had 'broken the rules'.

That poor woman.

I would have thought that that would be the case for a lot of us.

I wonder how many posters saying that they would do x,y,z really would?

Well, maybe now?

@Allthesefolks

We don’t stand a chance do we? Nicknamed “the rapist” by his colleagues ffs. I was reading a thread about “low level” sexual harassment by police officers today and the amount of women who’d experienced this was terrifying, and no complaints took seriously or they were covered up by colleagues.

@allthesefolks where did you read the thread? Can you share a link?

From the IOPC report:

We have served a total of 12 gross misconduct or misconduct notices on police officers from several forces as we continue to investigate matters linked to the conduct of PC Couzens. ^
^
One of our investigations has examined the circumstances surrounding how PC Couzens sustained head injuries in custody on 10 and 12 March after he had been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Sarah Everard. This investigation is nearing its conclusion and all officers involved have been treated as witnesses.^
^
Other ongoing investigations are:

• An investigation into alleged MPS failures to investigate two allegations of indecent exposure linked to PC Couzens in London in February 2021. Two officers are being investigated for possible breaches of professional standards at misconduct level.
• An investigation into alleged Kent Police failures to investigate an indecent exposure incident linked to PC Couzens in Kent in 2015. No notices have been served.
• An investigation into allegations that a probationary MPS police constable shared an inappropriate graphic with colleagues via social media. The officer subsequently manned a cordon at the scene of the search for Ms Everard. Three officers have been served with gross misconduct notices.
• An investigation into allegations that officers from a number of forces breached standards of professional behaviour while sharing information linked to the prosecution of PC Couzens via a messaging app. One officer has been served with a gross misconduct notice and another six have received misconduct notices.

Tell me that the police aren't a bunch of misogynist arseholes. I won't believe you

www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/wayne-couzens-nickname-met-police-sarah-everard-b945119.html

Reading this thread what is jumping out to me is that this is a conversation mothers have with their black sons too. There’s no easy answer. Resisting arrest certainly isn’t good advice.
There are problems that lead to the top. The officers who took selfies with the mutilated bodies of the sisters in the park are still serving. It’s the tip of the iceberg.

@Clymene

Given the FOI I've just found and posted on another thread I don't believe anything at all will come of it - they dismissed almost all cases of corruption between 2014 & 2019

www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2020/march_2020/information-rights-unit---alleged-police-corruption-from-january-2014-to-august-2019

Sorry @TaraR2020 it was a private FB group (although has 100s of members) so I can’t share it, I can’t imagine it’s the only one out there though

Never mind, thanks anyway @allthesefolks

@Mybalconyiscracking

I have told my girls to scream the place down if a single officer ever tries to put them into a car for anything. I would do the same and deal with any consequences later. That poor, poor woman., such a massive betrayal of trust. I hope they lock him up and throw away the key!

All that would do is to convince bystanders that the (apparent) arrest was justified.

Not for me it wouldn't. I would want a very clear explanation as to what was going on and why arrests were taking place.

But I'm a 54 year old senior manager who doesn't put up with any crap from anyone. Just because people are in uniform, and are confident because of it, it doesn't mean they actually know that they are talking about.

It's not something I have ever thought about but I genuinely did think if it was opposite sex they arrested they had to get someone of the same sex to pat down so just assumed there would be 2 of them. Come to think of it I think the only time I see a police officer alone if is they are a pcso or one with dogs.
I dont think I would believe an undercover police officer now though.
The police need to realise they may of washed their hands of him but he was still employed by them and had noone looking into him, they also need to realise how they have affected women by taking this stance.
By this thread alone the majority would be wary of them now.
I'm sick of walking in well lit areas, not having my headphones in, getting a taxi just to keep myself safe. Why shouldn't I feel safe all the time.

Rather risk chance of ‘resisting arrest’ than end up dead. I doubt many real criminals go quietly at any rate.

Also to note that nobody whatsoever should be 'getting arrested' or put in handcuffs for some fucking 'Covid violation'.

We need to make a stand.

Exactly.

If his colleagues had dealt with his indecent exposure appropriately then he would not have been in the position to use his role as an officer against her. Police sticking together like a little club in the face of wrong doing is part of the problem.

@TaraR2020

Never mind, thanks anyway *@allthesefolks*

There was a thread about sexual abuse from met officers a while ago. I can't search for it because I'm on the app and the search function is unusable but you could try looking. I think I started it.

Here's an article: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/20/revealed-the-grim-list-of-sex-abuse-claims-against-metropolitan-police