1. Warrants are ordinarily granted by justices of the peace on information or complaint in writing and upon oath, and they must be indorsed when it is intended they should be executed in another county by a magistrate of that county (see Indictable Offences Act 1848). A warrant issued by a metropolitan police magistrate can be executed anywhere by a metropolitan police officer. Warrants are also granted in cases of treason or other offence affecting the government by the privy council, or one of the secretaries of state, and also by the chief or other justice of the court of king’s bench (bench-warrant) in cases of felony, misdemeanour or indictment found, or criminal information granted in that court. Every warrant ought to specify the offence charged, the authority under which the arrest is to be made, the person who is to execute it and the person who is to be arrested. A warrant remains in force till executed or discharged by order of a court. An officer may break open doors in order to execute a warrant in cases of treason, felony or indictable offences, provided that, on demand, admittance cannot otherwise be obtained. (See [Warrant].)
2. The officers who may arrest without warrant are,—justices of the peace, for felony or breach of the peace committed in their presence; the sheriff and the coroner in their county, for felony; constables, for treason, felony or breach of the peace committed in their view,—and within the metropolitan police district they have even larger powers (Metropolitan Police Acts 1829-1895).
3. A private person is bound to arrest for a felony committed in his presence, under penalty of fine and imprisonment. By the Prevention of Offences Act 1851, a private person is allowed to arrest any one whom he finds committing an indictable offence by night, and under the Malicious Damage Act 1861, any person committing an offence against that act may be arrested without warrant by the owner of the property damaged, or his servants, or persons authorized by him. So, too, by the Coinage Offences Act 1861. s. 31, any person may arrest any one whom he shall find committing any offence relating to the coin, or other offence against that act.
A person arrested without warrant must not be detained in private custody but must be taken with all convenient speed to a police station or justice and there charged (Summary Jurisdiction Act 1879).
4. The arrest by hue and cry is where officers and private persons are concerned in pursuing felons, or such as have dangerously wounded others. By the Fugitive Offenders Act 1881, provision was made for the arrest in the United Kingdom of persons committing treason, and felony in any of the British colonies and vice versa; as to the arrest of fugitives in foreign countries see [Extradition].
The remedy for a wrongful arrest is by an action for false imprisonment.
In Scotland the law of arrest in criminal procedure has a general constitutional analogy with that of England, though the practice differs with the varying character of the judicatories. Colloquially the word arrest is used in compulsory procedure for the recovery of debt; but the technical term applicable in that department is caption, and the law on the subject is generically different from that of England. There never was a practice in Scottish law corresponding with the English arrest in mesne process; but by old custom a warrant for caption could be obtained where a creditor made oath that he had reason to believe his debtor meditated flight from the country, and the writ so issued is called a warrant against a person in meditatione fugae. Imprisonment of old followed on ecclesiastical cursing, and by fiction of law in later times it was not the creditor’s remedy, but the punishment of a refractory person denounced rebel for disobedience to the injunctions of the law requiring fulfilment of his obligation. The system was reformed and stripped of its cumbrous fictions by an act of the year 1837. Although the proceedings against the person could only follow on completed process, yet, by a peculiarity of the Scottish law, documents executed with certain formalities, and by special statute bills and promissory notes, can be registered in the records of a court for execution against the person as if they were judgments of the court.
The general principles as to the law of arrest in most European countries correspond more or less exactly to those prevailing in England.
An arrest of a ship, which is the method of enforcing the admiralty process in rem, founded either on a maritime lien or on a claim against the ship, is dealt with under [Admiralty Jurisdiction].
See also article [Attachment].