On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:34:15 +0000, Invisible Man wrote:

chris French wrote:
In message , Dave
writes
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:04:56 -0000, dennis@home wrote:

When does 'citizens arrest' become kidnapping?
When they kidnap them and take them elsewhere.
Well ish, you can make a citizens arrest and take them to a police
station or magistrate to face charges.
Mind you the whole thing around "citizens arrest" is right tangled
mess:
http://www.kevinboone.com/citizens_arrest.html
As these two put one chap in a van took him to his mates then had a
fight no wonder they got done for kidnap. If they just used
reasonable force (what ever that is) to hold him, called the police
and waited they probably wouldn't have attracted the kidnap charge.
They might have got unlawful arrest instead...


OK, I am a bit stupid here. If I use reasonable force to undertake a
citizens arrest, under what conditions can I be charged under unlawful
arrest?

E.g.

Situations where say it was deemed that you didn't have grounds for a
reasonable belief that the arrestee had committed an arrestable offence.

Or where the offence is not an 'arrestable offence' - basically one
which the maximum sentence is 5 years imprisonment (though there are
lots of exceptiosn)

Remember a case where a fast food chain got sued for arresting someone
who offered a forged note. At that time at least it was not an
arrestable offence.

All well and good, but as an average sort of citizen, if I see someone
committing a crime, how the hell am I to know what the current sentencing
guidelines are and what exceptions there are? I probably won't even know
which specific crimes they are commiting, with the wierd and wonderful
system of law that we have.

SteveW