Courts: Offensive Weapons
(asked on 26th September 2014) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many incidents of confiscation of (a) knives, (b) firearms and (c) other weapons in (i) magistrates and (ii) Crown courts there were in each year since 2010.
The number of confiscated knives, firearms and other weapons in Magistrates and Crown Courts are as follows:
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| Knives | Firearms (incl. Replicas) | Other weapons ** |
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| Crown | Magistrates | Crown | Magistrates | Crown | Magistrates |
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12/13* | 322 | 1252 | 6 | 14 | 246 | 2325 |
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13/14 | 705 | 3108 | 7 | 24 | 1002 | 6418 |
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Total | 1027 | 4360 | 13 | 38 | 1248 | 8743 |
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* Figures for 2012/13 include data for an additional 8 week period from 1 February 2012 when the Total Facilities Management (TFM) contract was introduced.
** ’Other weapons’ are items Security deem could be used as a weapon |
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My Department takes the issue of security within courts extremely seriously and has a robust security and safety system to protect all court users and the Judiciary.
This system includes mandatory bag searches, metal detectors and surveillance cameras, as well as court security officers who have the legislative powers to protect all those in the court building. The powers of a court security office includes the power to request the surrender of a prohibited item or, if the request is refused, to seize the item.
Our security system is continually monitored to ensure that it is effective and proportionate and mitigates against the risks faced.
The figures provided do not cover the period prior to 1 February 2012 as there was no consolidated reporting of items confiscated from court users prior to the introduction of the Total Facilities Management contract.