Citizen's Arrest

So the Stead and I were heading back to my gaffe in his new works van. We were on the Ring Road at Filton, when we noticed that the car in front was veering all over the road. That stretch is a dual carriageway and this guy was crossing the line than wavering back and forth and doing it all really slowly.

So we pulled up next to him at the traffic lights and wound down the window. The driver was an old guy and was kinda lolling in the drivers seat.

Straight to the point, Stead asked the guy "Are you drunk?"

The driver kinda looked at us blearily and than said "Yes."

So Stead puts on his stern expression (which is really scary, cos he juts his jaw out and his eyebrows do this funny joining up thing), waves his finger pointedly and says "Pull over right now. I'm gonna do a Citizens arrest".

The guy was clearly unimpressed because when the lights turned green, he just pulled away and carried on taking up both lanes all the way down a major A road.

So we followed at a distance, and I called the police, who told me they'd send a car over. Never heard anything after that. I want closure.

Anyway. Here's the interesting part. I was somewhat dubious of Stead's power to make a legal citizen's arrest, so I've checked it out. A handy BBC site says:

The right to make a citizen’s arrest comes under section 3(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 which says:

"A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large."

The crime must be a ‘serious offence’, i.e. one which could potentially result in a prison sentence of five years or more. So drink-driving would not qualify as it has a maximum prison sentence of six months but stealing would because it can result in a long prison sentence.

This is backed up by a couple of other site's I've checked out, too. So... it seems that had he arrested the guy, it would have been an unlawful arrest. And the drunk guy could have sued him. So now you know. Don't try and arrest drink drivers!

Oddly, however, you can get him to pull over and take his keys, as that doesn't count as an offence as you haven't deprived him of his liberty.

You learn something new every day!