Andrew's search warrants were unlawful?

[Spikedlight]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr1exlvpzylvo

I didn't see that coming. Isn't that a pretty major cock up? Who, exactly messed up?

Does tha mean unlawful search warrants are a commonplace thing?

You do think they check that.
Do you search Warren is a very laborious process, loads of double checking loads of people looking at it

If you read the article you linked to it tells you that they applied under the wrong type of law. They also have to be very careful about if they come across confidential stuff during their search, for example legal action letters from your lawyer. They've really tightened up on it since 2020.

Free the Norfolk (and good) one!

It beggars belief.

Luckily for the police, unlawfully obtained evidence is still admissible in court.

The police applied for warrants under two legal provisions, the court decided they only needed one of them, and now another court has said actually whoops they needed the other one, which also could and would have been granted.

So the warrants as granted were unlawful, but they were properly applied for, and if the court had just specified that they were being granted under the correct provision then everything would have been fine.

This is a technical error rather than a massive miscarriage of justice.

Another police fuck up, what a surprise

Thank you. Presumably there is a benefit, to Andrew, of having brought this case?

Sounds like the court, not the police, got it wrong?

Maybe just highlights the incompetence and lack of attention to detail, the next step might be the actual arrest and questioning.

Not really. Except in the "court of public opinion".

And I would have thought he'd want to steer well clear of that.

He’s arguing that they confiscated items that they shouldn’t have taken during the search, and he wants them back.

Judge has said that it’s pointless to cancel the search warrant and hand everything back as the police would just immediately apply for another warrant under the correct provision, get it, and then seize everything again.

So there’ll be another hearing next year about whether specific items can stay with the police and be used in any criminal trial, but for now the police are keeping hold of everything,

Unless his lawyers apply to have it excluded under s78 of PACE.

They will now

Why are the press making it sound like the police fucked up?

From the article, not in this instance, no. It was the court that made the error.

Well, the police apply for the warrant

Why are the police involved saying it was unlawful and not the court

If this is true.. bit funny how they deliberately gave themselves a legal way out of getting actual justice to his victims. Pathetically obvious if so. No way would anyone have risked fucking up that monumentally.

Because the courts don’t tend to hold press conferences or make statements about ongoing investigations.

Have you even read the judgement or the article?