How do warrants work?

[n0ne]

Completely out of curiosity, but how do police get a warrant, to search a property, for eg? Are there judges on 24-hour call to authorise them? How do they decide whether to grant them or not? How quickly can one be turned around? It seems like it can be quite an involved process in the US (according to telly), is it different in the UK?

Search warrants are often signed by Magistrates in the UK. If it is out of Court hours there is a list of Magistrates who can be called at home to sign search warrants when they are needed.

DH is one, we have been woken up by the police a few times over the years. I know they have to show him paperwork and he has to complete some and file it with the magistrate court, but I am not sure what it involves.

My role (if the DC are awake) is to keep them out the way or if in the middle of the night I roll over and go back to sleep. He wouldn't tell me details anyway due to confidentuality.

Search warrants are always issued by magistrates. Before issuing the warrant the magistrate should be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that an indictable offence has been committed (i.e. an offence that could be tried in the Crown Court), that there is likely to be evidence on the premises and that the police will not be able to recover the evidence without a warrant. Once the warrant has been granted the police have 3 months to carry out the search. They are supposed to conduct the search at a reasonable hour unless they think this would frustrate the purpose of the search.

Thanks, very interesting!