Maltby claims "victory" over Powers of Arrest

Aftter eight years of lobbying Members of Parliament, Home Office officials and various security organisations, independent Bristol-based security consultant Derek Maltby - a retired police sergeant who served the Avon and Somerset Constabulary - is now claiming to have won his fight to have the Powers of Arrest law for civilians both improved and clarified, writes Brian Sims.

Section 24A of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which came into force last January, empowers citizens - in the form of security officers - to arrest anyone committing an indictable offence (such as shop theft) when they have been alerted to this information on the allegation of a third party (and it is necessary to prevent them from making off before a police officer is able to assume responsibility).

Maltby - who served for seven years as the security and services manager at the Galleries Shopping Centre in Bristol, and directed over 30 on-site security officers - was formerly the training manager for a security guarding company, and has instructed on making arrests "from both sides of the fence" as police officer and civilian.

From those experiences, he knew there was a "serious gap" between when citizens and police officers could make an arrest on the basis of information received from someone else.

In May 2003, following a meeting with Maltby, David Cameron MP (then representing Witney and now, of course, leader of the Conservative Party) attempted to have the Criminal Justice Bill amended to reflect these shortfalls in the law in the outdated Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 by tabling an amendment to the House of Commons. This was defeated due to the ‘time guillotine'.

Maltby added: "This issue has taken longer than I expected to be resolved, but at least private sector security officers can now act on information they receive from their colleagues or members of the public and lawfully make an arrest."