OSPRE - PC to Sgt Week 6

Thu, 11 February 2010 Courtesy of: Police Oracle

This weeks topics:

Sexual Offences

Control of Sex Offenders

Child Protection

Theft and Related Offences

Fraud

Criminal Damage

Offences against the Administration of Justice and Public Interest

Offences Arising from Immigration, Asylum, and People Exploitation.

We have a lot of important topics to look at this week, and some of them are big chapters in terms of the amount of law to be learnt.

The first chapter this week is a very big one with a lot of important topic areas in it, Sexual Offences. Following the protection issues around Baby Peter, it is well worth having a good look at any child related offences. Also look at Abuse of Trust, a very topical subject that is easy to write questions about. There are a lot of offences contained within this chapter, but they do have very similar bases. By that I mean if you can learn the central body of the offence a lot of additional information can sit either before or after, or both, to create other offences. This is particularly so with the section, Sexual Activity with a Mentally Disordered Person, have a look and you will see what I mean. This should make any study a little easier to remember. The section on Kerb crawling and prostitution is a section that too, is worth getting to know because it contains a lot of easy areas for the examiners to test. Kerb Crawling implies coming from a vehicle, but there is no vehicle mentioned in the third part of the offence.

There is a new chapter about Control of Sex Offenders in this years Blackstone’s. It has been distilled from the old Sexual Offences chapter and contains a lot of good areas to write questions about. This is a relatively short chapter, but there are a lot of important areas in it. You will need to know what circumstances (offences) bring an offender into the control situation, then how long they are ‘controlled’ for. Lastly what happens if they don’t fulfil their obligations under the act. It is an excellent area for a good question writer, because it is full of times and different circumstances that are directly related to one another. This may be an occasion where a chart is called for. There is a good one in Blackstone’s at 1.10.3.1, but you could draw up your own with all the data on it. There is also a police power which is well worth knowing, as are all police powers.

Chapter 11 is about Child Protection, a very topical subject area, that has been in the news a lot in the last few years and that makes it a good bet for your exam. As I have indicated already in this weeks article anything involving Child Protection issues is very significant. One good area in which to write a question would be to set some circumstances around an abduction and then to relate them to whether the person involved is a person connected with the child or not, or to make the child too old for the legislation to apply. There are also some police powers here that need to be understood. These relate to your power to take a child into Police Protection. It also is well worth your while knowing who should be informed when a child is taken into Police Protection, ages and so on. A good question would be about who can have contact and under what circumstances, always remembering that the Designated Officer has the final say depending on what is reasonable and in the best interests of the child.

The Theft and Related Offences chapter is full of very important areas to study, most of which are fairly straight forward. When I am running Crammer courses I tend to pass, on this chapter because it is interesting and should be bread and butter to most of you. The Theft Act is one of the best written pieces of legislation, but it does contain one or two areas to have a good look at. The definition of dishonesty or rather what is not dishonest is easy to test. Robbery and Burglary are two good topic areas with ample scope for a good question writer. With Robbery remember when in the sequence of events the use or threat of force must come, while in Burglary get a good understanding of the difference between the two offences and also Aggravated Burglary. Handling Stolen Goods is an interesting topic which a clever question writer can link to theft and come up with a very testing question. This is another one of those areas where a drawing showing the progress of the stolen goods and things that represent the stolen goods helps to cement the knowledge. In the ’Going Equipped’ offence the important words are ‘When not at his place of abode’

All of these are really important definitions to get to know very well. Once you know the definition it does not matter what the circumstances are, you can relate the definition to the circumstances and should always get the question right. I cannot stress how important rote learning of definitions is in your studies.

The next chapter is on Fraud. Allowing for the examiners to go through the full validation process on questions based on legislation dated 2006, you can be sure that some questions will have been fully validated and could well appear in your exam. Most of the offences are fairly easy to understand, but if you are having difficulty getting your heads round them draw them into a flow chart, I always found that helped me to get through. The only down side for what is a short chapter in terms of the number of pages is that there are a lot of offences, many of which are obscure ones.

The next chapter this week is Criminal Damage, and contains some interesting offences here for a good question writer to get their teeth into. They mainly spring out of the Simple Damage Section 1 offence, so make sure you understand that. A bit like my earlier comments relating to Sexual Offences, if you learn the core of the Section 1, Simple Damage offence, the other offences all spring out of that core, and will be easy to understand and learn. The offence of Making Threats has an interesting intent, so even if the question writer suggests that the person to whom the threat is made does not believes the threat, the offence is still made out. The intent is that the other would believe the threat, not that they do! Don’t forget too that this is one of the offences that can be Racially or Religiously Aggravated, and that hostility must be demonstrated at the time or IMMEDIATELY before or after.

The Contamination of Goods offence is complex and a good way to learn this is to think of an example for each action. Look at the intentions, how would you cause public alarm or anxiety and so on, that should help.

Offences against the Administration of Justice and Public Interest is one of those chapters that Blackstone’s uses to park lots of topics that won’t go anywhere else. Most of them are actually quite interesting, and will also link well with other topics in the Crime book so I would get to know all of this chapter well. Over the years Perjury, and Assisting Offenders have been regularly visited by the question writers, so they are particularly worth your while having a good look at.

Offences Arising from Immigration, Asylum and People Exploitation is a very topical chapter, and would have been when your exam was written so this is also worth taking a bit of time over. The legislation about regulation of Gang Masters is a topical subject and it is worth remembering that the offence needs BOTH possession of a false relevant document and also a specific intent for it to be made out.

When you have worked through all that, you have completed the second of your study books. Well done.

Top Tips

When you are dealing with large and difficult areas of law to understand, break them down into bite sized chunks. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Some of the sections in Blackstone’s look very forbidding and complex so take them in small stages and get to understand each one before moving on. Take each section on its own and understand that before moving on.

Break complex law down into flow charts, Visually things are much easier to understand than pages of text, and Blackstone’s has a lot of pages of text. If you just highlight the important parts you will finish up with pages of highlighted text, and not very much further forward. Not very helpful!

Lastly my normal warning, I am not one for selecting certain topics and leaving things that are not likely to come up. No-one except your examiner knows what is in your exam, and the best way to pass is to have a good knowledge of all four Blackstone’s books.

Remember it is only 31 days to go to the exam; keep working hard it is well worth the effort when the results are published and you are on the pass list!

Finally if you are having a problem visit my Part 1 forum on www.policeoracle.com and if I can help you I will. That makes the assumption a knowledgeable officer does not get there ahead of me.

Good luck and keep studying!

The Trainer