Requesting a Warrant to Arrest

Making a request for a warrant to arrest

A request for a warrant to arrest (WTA) can only be made if there are reasons why a summons to appear in court cannot be served on an offender.

The two reasons for requesting a warrant in lieu of a summons are:

• when a summons can not be served due to safety concerns, or
• when the whereabouts of the offender is unknown.

Reference: Volume 3B, Part IV, Chapter 5, Community Detention Breaches. (Please refer to the related links section on this page).

Note: Reasons for seeking the WTA must be recorded. This applies even if a judge has issued one on a verbal request.

Issuing a warrant to arrest

A WTA in relation to CD can only be issued by the court. In these cases warrants are issued to have the offender taken into custody until they can attend a hearing before the court.

The court may issue a WTA either:

• following a request from CPPS, or
• if an offender fails to appear at a hearing.

Warrants executable by police only

Once issued, only police can execute the WTA. A probation officer cannot arrest the offender under such a warrant.

Police must be alerted to the offender's location if this is known. When the offender comes to their notice, police should bring the offender into custody under a WTA.

If the offender makes a voluntary appearance, or appears on other matters, it is important to ensure that either:

• the WTA for the breach is executed by police, or
• an application is made to withdraw the warrant in court.

File maintenance

All files with outstanding warrants should be kept in an appropriately identified cabinet. For centres with court servicing responsibilities, the cabinet should be adjacent to other court files.

This system should also be supported by a list, manual or electronic, of all WTA files.

Quarterly check on outstanding warrants

A court servicing administrative officer should make a quarterly check of the list of WTA against IOMS. They should identify any discrepancies, such as an offender having come to notice elsewhere without the WTA being actioned.

The probation officer should establish the status of the offender and determine how the prosecution should be actioned.

If there has been a discrepancy, the probation officer must seek the leave of the court to have the warrant withdrawn by the court, to ensure the warrant is not wrongly actioned.

Request for withdrawal of warrant

The reasons for requesting that a warrant be withdrawn must be made clear to the court. The judge must formally direct the withdrawal. Without such a direction, the police have no authority to remove it from their persons of interest system.

Process

The following diagram shows the stages involved in requesting a WTA.