On Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:31:58 +0100, Snow_Flower wrote:

On 09/09/2014 17:25, Bill wrote:
On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 17:18:13 +0100, Yitzhak Isaac Goldstein
wrote:

Bill wrote:
On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 17:02:51 +0100, Yitzhak Isaac Goldstein
wrote:

Bill wrote:
On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:56:53 +0100, Yitzhak Isaac Goldstein
wrote:
Joe Egginton wrote:

I noticed a woman dropped a ciggy butt on the pavement before she got
on a bus, and a PCSO came running up, to wanting her name and address.
She said to him,"You can't arrest me, you can't stop me getting onto
this bus, go away you silly officious little man" . LOL

At which point, she is detained for littering under s. 88 of the
Environmental Protection Act 1990, and for failing to give her name and
address under s. 50 of the Police Reform Act 2002 (Paragraph 3 of
Schedule 4 as amended, paragraph 3(10) of Schedule 8 to the Serious
Organised Crime and Police Act 2005).

Not by a PCSO she won't be.

They are specifically NOT 'acting in the office of a constable' and have
no powers of arrest unless they see an imprisonable act take place.

Where did I mention 'arrest', Bill...?

A PCSO cannot detain anyone unless they are committing a serious
crime.

He (or she) has exactly the same powers as any other citizen, and
nothing more...

I am afraid you are wrong, Bill. I suggest you leave Wiki behind and check
out the powers as defined in _inter alia_ the Police Reform Act 2002...


Interesting.

They only have the powers if the local Chief Constable gives them out.

Strangely specials with far less training than PCSOs do have the same
powers as a full police officer.

But they're 'of the community they serve' and so are assumed to have
the interests of that community at heart.

Like your local magistrates.

(I do have to add that I have never met a 'special' who seemed
anything near normal. As a rule the ones I've met are the sort of
bitter and twisted characters who really wants to get his (they always
seem to be men) own back on the kids who broke his greenhouse window.)