Caroline leads fight against
organised crime and drugs.

8 April 2005

In the last few hours of parliamentary business before dissolution, Don Valley MP Caroline Flint was centre stage as Parliament approved two new Bills, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill and the Drugs Bill, both of which have received Royal Assent.

The Home Office Minister led Government efforts to ensure the two key bills were not lost in the "wash up".

Ms Flint said the Drugs Act would step up the fight against the dealers. "Last year, we legislated to close drug dens. This year we will be stepping up drug testing on arrest for certain offences and crack down hard on dealers near schools.

"This Act also extends the police powers to detain a suspect who swallows their drugs to avoid detection. There will be no simple ploys for dealers to escape the arm of the law - except for one - to give up dealing and get back to honest work."

The crime fighting Minister also signalled a step up in the battle against organised crime. Said Ms Flint: "We have to stay a step ahead of the organised criminals and drug dealers who menace our communities. Last year, we began seizing the assets of organised criminals. This Act creates a new agency, the Serious & Organised Crime Agency, to fight them.

"The Act not only strengthens the hand of the police with extended search warrants and new powers for road-side fingerprinting, but it extends powers available to the Police Community Support Officers who are an essential part of the policing family.

"Labour is determined to put 24,000 PCSOs on our streets and to have local neighbourhood policing teams in every community. So I am particularly pleased that the powers parliament has just approved will be having an impact on the streets of Doncaster very soon."

NOTES TO EDITORS

SERIOUS ORGANISED CRIME AND POLICE BILL
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill has received Royal Assent. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005:
1. establishes the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and provides for the abolition of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. The two agencies' structures and roles, together with the part of HM Customs and Excise which tackles drug trafficking and money laundering, will be absorbed into this new agency. It also sets out SOCA's constitution, functions, general powers and its relationship with Ministers; as well as providing for the transfer of staff to SOCA and the procedures for investigating complaints and misconduct;

2. allows for similar powers to those used by the Serious Fraud Office to enable individuals to be compelled to answer questions in interviews with prosecutors and produce documents on demand. The Act also puts Queen's Evidence on a statutory footing;

3. gives judges a new power to impose strict financial reporting requirements on offenders post sentence;

4. gives police new powers including the power of arrest for all offences, introducing search warrants that can be used to search more than one property owned by an individual and that can be used on more than one occasion and improving the use of forensic material, for example by allowing roadside fingerprinting and the taking of footwear impressions;

5. gives community support officers additional powers including a power to direct traffic, deter begging, search detained persons for dangerous articles or items that may be used to assist escape and a power to enforce certain licensing offences and to enter licensed premises;

6. provides for the introduction of civilian custody officers to work alongside police in custody suites;

7. extends harassment laws to prevent harassment of two or more people who are being persuaded not to do something they are entitled to do; creates a new offence of protesting outside someone's home where a person is causing harassment, alarm or distress; and provides police with the power to direct a protester to leave the vicinity of a home and not return for up to three months;

8. introduces new offences of interference with business contracts so as to damage an animal research organisation and intimidation of persons connected with an animal research organisation; and

9. allows the police to impose conditions on any person demonstrating within the vicinity of Parliament.

DRUGS BILL RECEIVES ROYAL ASSENT
The Drugs Bill, which received Royal Assent. The Drugs Act 2005 brings in powers to:
1. give the police powers to test for class A drugs on arrest and require those who test positive to attend a drugs assessment and follow-up appointment;

2. make dealing near a school, or using children as couriers for drugs or drugs-related money, an aggravating factor in sentencing;

3. introduce a new presumption that those caught with more drugs than reasonable for personal use intend to supply, which carries tougher penalties;

4. give the police tougher powers to tackle dealers who swallow their drugs or hide them in body cavities - the police will be able to order an x-ray or ultrasound, and magistrates will be able to remand suspected swallowers in custody for up to eight days;

5. tackle the open selling of 'magic mushrooms' by clarifying the law that fresh mushrooms, as well as prepared ones, are illegal; and

6. establish a new drug intervention order to run alongside anti-social behaviour orders to address drug misuse by people committing anti-social acts.

For more information contact Phil Cole 07973 367869 or Peter Johnson, Training Manager 865936 x226.