Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994

Valid from 10/04/1995

118 Arrangements for the provision of prisoner escorts.U.K.

(1)The Secretary of State may make arrangements for any of the following functions, namely—

(a)the delivery of prisoners from one set of relevant premises to another;

(b)the custody of prisoners held on the premises of any court (whether or not they would otherwise be in the custody of the court) and their production before the court;

(c)the custody of prisoners temporarily held in a prison in the course of delivery from one prison to another; and

(d)the custody of prisoners while they are outside a prison for temporary purposes;

to be performed in such cases as may be determined by or under the arrangements by prisoner custody officers who are authorised to perform such functions.

(2)In paragraph (a) of subsection (1) above, “relevant premises” means a court, prison, police station or hospital; and either (but not both) of the sets of premises mentioned in that paragraph may be situated in a part of the British Islands outside Northern Ireland.

(3)Arrangements made by the Secretary of State under this section (“prisoner escort arrangements”) may include entering into contracts with other persons for the provision by them of prisoner custody officers.

(4)Any person who, under a warrant or a hospital order or remand, is responsible for the performance of any such function as is mentioned in subsection (1) above shall be deemed to have complied with that warrant, order or remand if he does all that he reasonably can to secure that the function is performed by a prisoner custody officer acting in pursuance of prisoner escort arrangements.

(5)In this section—

• “hospital” has the same meaning as in the M1Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986;

• “hospital order” means an order for a person’s admission to hospital under Article 44, 45, 49 or 50 of that Order, or section 11 or 13 of the M2Criminal Appeal (Northern Ireland) Act 1980;

• “hospital remand” means a remand of a person to hospital under Article 42 or 43 of the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986;

• “warrant” means a warrant of commitment, a warrant of arrest or a warrant under Article 52, 53, 54, 56 or 79 of that Order.