Aw aye, nearly got my door kicked in the other day!

I had a friend who spent several days in a police station being questioned as a suspected murderer.

He left a pub that was on a lane set in local woodland at closing time rather worse for wear. And decided to navigate his way through the dark dense woodland as he had no money left for a cab and walking on the lanes would have been miles so thought as the crow flies would take half the time and what could go wrong.

He got lost and found himself wandering around the woods for hours and being very drunk fell over several times so was very dirty and blooded were his arms and face were scratched as he fought his way through ever thicker undergrowth.

About two or three in the morning he could see some lights so headed in that direction only to wander in to a newly established crime scene where the police had just found the body of a 15 year old girl who had recently gone missing.

The circumstances in which he was found plus the fact he was an alcoholic loner in his late twenties who was homeless living in a dumped car at the time made him their prime suspect. Luckily for him they could not come up with any hard evidence as much as they tried,with him being innocent, so they eventually had to let him go. They never caught the killer but needless to say my friend said being interrogated as a suspected child murderer was the scariest time of his life.

No PACE up here crankboy, and our powers of entry aren’t as generous.

Scottish Law = make their own rules up as they go along 🙂 😆

crankboy – Member
If you had refused them entry they would have entered (not going to look it up but pace reasonable grounds to believe necessary to save life or limb) based on 999 call believed from address if you had been a dick about this they would have used reasonable force to enter they would have turned the place upside down they would then have taken a non reasonable non libertarian stance to your weed . They would have nicked you down loaded your texts to see if any weed commerce was revealed . That could depending on outcome spiral into a financial investigation and please explain any and all cash payments into your account over the last 6 years.

So when coppers come looking to save damsels in distress don’t be a dick and they probably will return the favour.
I did think it easier just to let them in, I guess my instincts were correct! 😆 (tbh soon as they mentioned the 999 call, I did think they would have had reasonable grounds to enter and I’d just end up in a cell for obstruction or something.)

btw the call was made from a mobile registered to the address. A previous tenant as far as we could make out.

Exactly monkeyfeet! If it’s good enough for the PF and the courts, why not us too 🙂

I’ve had police knocking on my door looking for someone else, about 2 in the morning iirc. Thankfully me sticking my head out of the bedroom window and telling them I hadn’t a clue who they were looking for sufficed – can’t remember if I was under the influence but I was “entertaining”.

That’s just the sort of occasion to use the line

“I ain’t saying nuffink, till I see Burnside….”

These exact words once earned me a night in Scarborough nick. To be honest, I’ve slept in worse places.

You may want to go with the greatapes view as scotland is a different country with different laws to England and Wales. Still bet your door would have gone off if you had refused entry though.

boblo – Member
If the ‘Polis’ (assumed to be Police of a Scotch flavour ) bash your misidentified door down, who pays to make good?

yunki – Member
I’ve always been led to believe that if they find any evidence of a crime then they don’t have to pay for any damage to your property..

Hence crankboys post above ringing true

If they had gone in with a warrant, it would be for the householder to pay for the repair regardless of whether or not evidence of a crime was found. I don’t think it was always this way up here, I think it was as yunki says, whether by the rules or by convention, but now it is the householder who pays if the police entered lawfully.

In the OPs situation, I am not sure that would apply. Obviously it wasn’t a warrant, but I think if they had forced entry base on where a mobile phone was once registered to, it would not be reasonable to expect the OP to pay. I’d certainly be going after the police to pay in those circumstances.

In Scotland, police can enter property without a warrant to quell an ongoing disturbance or if they hear cries for help. Power to enter following a report of a disturbance – i.e. it’s finished by the time they get there – is not specifically covered, and it would then depend on the circumstances what they might or might not do next (there are, through common law, various circumstances were it has be established that entry without warrant was lawful).

crankboy – Member
You may want to go with the greatapes view as scotland is a different country with different laws to England and Wales. Still bet your door would have gone off if you had refused entry though.

Regardless of country, I did get the impression that my compliance wasn’t a particularly necessary requirement for entry! 😆

thegreatape – Member
boblo – Member
In Scotland, police can enter property without a warrant to quell an ongoing disturbance or if they hear cries for help. Power to enter following a report of a disturbance – i.e. it’s finished by the time they get there – is not specifically covered, and it would then depend on the circumstances what they might or might not do next (there are, through common law, various circumstances were it has be established that entry without warrant was lawful).

I did get the distinct impression that they thought they were attending an on going domestic violence case.

Whether the person that phone the emergency call was at the wind up or was in genuine danger, I’ve no idea. I hope it was the former.

Who knows, let’s hope so. For what it’s worth, 99% of cops don’t have any wish to intrude on innocent members of the public. They also don’t want to be the cop that walked away from the house where someone has just killed someone and someone else told the police about it, which is why they will try very hard to get in and check, whether they use some powers or persuasion to do it. It’s not intruding on you for the sake of it. Can you imagine the uproar if the worst had happened and the police had turned up and not checked! Pragmatic cops (i.e. not brand new ones) may often be inclined to overlook a small amount of cannabis they see or smell in the house of someone who is helping them do their job, but I couldn’t possibly comment on that 🙂

I once had the police knocking very loudly on my door because someone had reported sounds of a woman in distress. It was late morning and I was fast asleep having got back from clubbing only a few hours ago. I think they looked at my zombie like face realized I was in no state to even hurt a fly. They asked if I’d heard anything, I said no, I’d been sleeping and that was it they left me to it.

is this[/url] your house?

Quality Polisman?

Burnside? Burnside?! This is Glasgow, we’ve got our own crime dramas here.

Walking to work a few years ago, my usual walk down the lane was blocked by a policeman – I asked him what the problem was, and in his best Taggart impersonation he replied “There’s been a murdurr!”

He said he’d been waiting for hours to say that 😀

I once had a rather urgent knock on the door in a rented flat. Opened the door to a pair of coppers asking me of I was so and so.

Only one of the he coppers was a friend who never knew my recently moved into the new flat.

Invited the pair of them in for a cuppa.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/26/youre-dead-police-thought-man-trying-to-kill-spider-was-attacking-wife
I just remembered this..

I gave them a wee bit

Am I the only one that read that as “I gave them a bit of weed”.

I had locked myself out of my flat once so was in the process of crawling through the kicked-in bottom panel of the door when two coppers turned up. I started to explain when they cut me off saying they were here for a neighbour, and asked if I knew where he was. Didn’t seem in the least bit bothered by the in-progress B&E so whoever they were looking for must’ve been in pretty deep trouble. They did seem rather agitated