Coventry Police's Unusual Manner of Highlighting Burglary Prevention

ROFLMAO looks like you know them all. I prefer the Intercontinental Hotel Group :)
Firm's too tight to spend out on anything else :(
( and thats if I'm lucky :D )
 
Hope I can clear this up :police:

The cops/PCSO's are NOT committing any offence by entering someone's house, assuming of course they have not got the intention of stealing, causing damage or assaulting anyone when they enter. Those are the conditions for burglary with intent (roughly). If they do not steal or assault anyone once there, they do not commit the offence of burglary either. Therefore, if they cause no damage entering, have no intention of doing the things above when entering, and once there don't do anything - they've committed NO offence. There is no offence of 'breaking and entering' or suchlike. There could be a trespass but that's a civil offence not a criminal one.

Obviously the police have conditions about when they can enter dwelling (there is a difference in legislation about dwellings and other building), but those are covered under PACE and as far as I'm aware, entering to expose the home owner for not locking their doors is not one of them. But then it would be up to the homeowner to complain about a breach of PACE to the senior officers of the force involved.

Personally, if it causes someone some upset, I think that's better for them than to be burgled and be even more upset. Got to be cruel to be kind.
 
Pretty much covered earlier, but I'll :clap::clap: nonetheless :D
 
Therefore, if they cause no damage entering, have no intention of doing the things above when entering, and once there don't do anything - they've committed NO offence.
Curious, just to be clear, so if I wander in to someone's house uninvited, to see if they have the same wallpaper as me ( for example)
I've broken no laws, but maybe prosecuted under a civil action for trespass?

But if I get a baseball bat shoved up my arse, in doing so, I could prosecute the home owner for assault?
 
Basically yes.

Obviously intention is a difficult one to prove and your actions can be used to speculate on what your intentions were.

As an example as to why intention is important, in order to steal anything, there HAS to be the intention to permanently deprive someone of the property being 'stolen'. So, if I was walking past your house and had no shoes on, and noticed you'd left a pair of walking shoes on your step to dry, I could take them but still not steal them, as long as my intention was just to perhaps walk home and return them the day after, ie, no intention to permanently deprive. That's why a specific offence of TWOC (Taken without owners consent) was created to tackle car thefts for joy racers. At the start they were getting off as they (more likely their solicitors) were arguing that when they took the car, they only wanted it for a razz about then to dump it, and therefore had no intention to permanently deprive the owners of the car. According to the offence wording, they did not commit theft.
 
Obviously intention is a difficult one to prove and your actions can be used to speculate on what your intentions were.
I don't envy you your job!
 
The intention is pretty easy to prove really in most theft cases, sure you get the odd one. Especially as the person in possession has to have taken steps to establish whether the kit was abandoned or lost or even unattended.

Anyway most of that is just tax wasting.

Good on these guys I say.
 
The intention is pretty easy to prove really in most theft cases, sure you get the odd one.

For sure, but solicitors know every 'get out' and unpalatable as it seems, their job is to get people 'off'.

Another good one is the offence of 'being found on enclosed premises'. It's like a criminal trespass used to cover when people are caught in yards, building sites etc etc. But, part of the offence is proving that their intentions were 'dishonest'. You'd be amazed at the number of would be burglars that have 'got off' by explaining that they were simply curious about all the building works and were just having a wander around, the though of stealing something never even crossed their minds, Your Worship!
 
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