Iain Dale on the Speaker's statement "Wow. Explosive stuff".
Like in damp squib?
The courts have made clear that police officers do not have to tell people that they can refuse to consent to a warrantless search. In other words, a police officer does not need to read you your rights before asking you to consent to a search. Also, despite the widespread myth to the contrary, an officer does not need to get your consent in writing. Oral consent is completely valid.
Speaker 'regrets' over raid on MP
House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin has said he "regretted" that police had been allowed to search a Tory MP's office without a warrant.
Given that the police also searched Damian Green's office in Kent, and his home, why has the issue of a search warrant or no search warrant been raised in either of these other searches by the police and only in relation to his office in the House of Commons?
3 comments:
The website you quote is a US one.
anon: You are right, but it is exactly the same over here. It just so happened that it was the best available explanation of the legal position. Sometimes they are better at English than the English...
Actually the world's foremost blogging expert was on Radio 5 Live this aftenoon, and knock me down with a feather, he was spouting exactly the same line as David Davis (for freedom and hanging) was making on a later programme, and David Cameron was making in the House of Commons.
This apparently is no longer about the arrest of Green and the receipt of stolen goods, or whether the Home Secretary knew, but the sanctity of the House of Commons and the privacy of Green's constituents.
A smokescreen is being built around the whole thing because the Tories were regularly receiving stolen intelligence information which had nothing to do with a public interest defence, and more about a mole they were running in the civil service. They are getting anxious now and throwing as much as they can into the public domain to avoid a trial and their man singing like a canary.
I suspect they haven't factored in Max Clifford and the News of the Screws yet though. they won't be so easily cowed as the MPs, nor give a toss for parliamentary immunity.
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