Just a Tap

It was the early hours of the morning. She was asleep. The banging began distant enough to rationalise, a neighbour, someone outside. Then it got louder. The building started shaking. When officers forced entry, the tone was immediate: not investigators, people who had already decided. In the car to custody she listened to an officer take a phone call and repeat back extracts from a witness statement. She was present for an account of events written without her.

At the booking-in desk the arresting officer described the forced entry to the custody sergeant. It had been, the officer said, just a tap. The forced entry had been significant enough to shake the building and crack the wall. The description bore no relation to what had happened, but it was said in front of her, she had no means to challenge it, and it was written down.

DARVO, which stands for deny, attack, reverse victim and offender, is most commonly described as a tactic used by individuals to deflect accountability. In institutional settings it becomes more structural. Its most complete institutional expression is the counter-allegation: a report to police by the person causing harm, framing the victim as the source. Survivors are arrested or charged following their own reports when the person causing harm makes a counter-allegation. Parliamentary evidence to the domestic abuse inquiry named vexatious complaints and counter-allegations as part of stalking behaviour, not separate from it.

An arrest requires two things under section 24 of PACE 1984. Reasonable grounds to suspect an offence, and necessity. Necessity is not automatic. In practice the sixth necessity criterion, prompt and effective investigation, is the most commonly cited and the most elastic. It can be used to justify almost any arrest. But the necessity test is supposed to be a genuine assessment, not a formality.

Entry to premises is governed by section 17. This is force against property, not against a person, a distinct legal framework with different accountability mechanisms. There is no use-of-force form required for property entry equivalent to the form required when force is used against a person. The account the arresting officer gives at custody booking is, in the absence of other evidence, the primary record of what happened.

The custody sergeant occupies a formal gatekeeping role under PACE. They must be satisfied the arrest was lawful and detention is necessary. In practice their assessment begins with what the arresting officer tells them. Anchoring bias means information received first carries disproportionate weight in subsequent assessments. The person being booked in has rights, including the right to have someone informed, to free legal advice, and to consult the Codes, but they are informed of those rights into a context already established by the account that preceded them.

PACE Code C requires assessment of the physical and mental state of every person brought into custody. The 2025 HMICFRS/CQC inspection of the Metropolitan Police custody suites found 20 areas for improvement and a main cause of concern around governance and oversight of custody performance.

Mental health liaison and diversion services that operate between 8am and 8pm are not available to the person arrested at 1am. In documented DARVO cases, a condition disclosed at booking-in sits on the custody record until a specialist is eventually secured, not because the system identified the need, but because someone outside it kept calling. By the time a referral is left in an envelope on the custody desk, it is almost seventeen hours after the disclosure.

For children, the appropriate-adult entitlement is statutory and the local authority has a duty to provide it. For vulnerable adults, the entitlement in Code C is clear but provision is non-statutory. There is no equivalent duty. Provision is voluntary, inconsistent, and varies between forces, between custody centres within a single force, and between times of day.

The most common improper refusal is the substitution argument: that because a detainee has legal representation, the appropriate-adult function is fulfilled. Code C is explicit that this is wrong. The solicitor provides legal advice. The appropriate adult safeguards welfare and ensures fairness. These are different functions and one does not substitute for the other.

Disclosure before interview is required but not required to be complete. A person going into interview may not know the full shape of what has been alleged, what evidence exists, or how the institution has received the account of the person who reported them. For someone who is themselves a victim of the person who reported them, the right to silence exists precisely because this is a structurally disadvantaged position. Using it may, however, come at a cost at trial.

• Statutory appropriate-adult provision for vulnerable adults, equivalent to the duty that exists for children
• Explicit prohibition of the substitution argument as a ground for refusing an appropriate adult
• Twenty-four-hour mental health liaison and diversion at all custody suites, jointly funded by NHS England and the Home Office
• Formal counter-allegation protocols requiring senior-officer review before arrest where the proposed detainee has a prior victim record relating to the same person
• Custody to remain a standalone PEEL inspection grade in 2025–27 and beyond