What Northumbria Police Can and Cannot Do During a Stop Search

Seeing police officers and a walk-through metal detector at a Metro station can raise an obvious question: do you actually have to go through it? And if an officer stops you in Newcastle city centre, how much choice do you have about being searched?

The answers are more nuanced than many people realise. Police have significant legal powers to stop and search people, particularly when weapons are suspected, but those powers are not unlimited. There is also an important difference between being asked a question, being asked to walk through a knife arch and being lawfully detained for a search.

Can police stop you and ask questions?

Police can approach and question someone without necessarily carrying out a stop and search. GOV.UK says an officer might ask your name, what you are doing in the area or where you are going. In an ordinary stop and question encounter, however, you do not have to stop or answer those questions. Refusing to answer, by itself, cannot be used as the reason to search or arrest you.

That changes when an officer is exercising a legal power to detain and search you. Under common stop and search powers, officers can search someone when they have reasonable grounds to suspect they are carrying items such as illegal drugs, a weapon, stolen property or something that could be used to commit a crime. If lawful grounds exist, you cannot simply refuse the search and walk away.

What must police tell you before a search?

A stop and search is not the same as an arrest, and being searched does not mean police believe you have definitely committed an offence.

Before carrying out a search, GOV.UK says an officer must provide information including their name and police station, what they expect to find and why they want to search you. PACE Code A governs the use of statutory stop and search powers and places importance on searches being lawful and properly recorded.

If the officer is not in uniform, they must show their warrant card when exercising stop and search powers. Police can also detain you for the time reasonably required to conduct a lawful search, meaning attempting to leave once lawfully detained is very different from walking away from an ordinary conversation with an officer.

Do you have to walk through a knife arch?

This is where the rules become particularly relevant to Newcastle commuters.

Knife arches are walk-through metal detectors used to identify knives and other metallic weapons. The College of Policing says they are often accompanied by uniformed and plain-clothes officers who can watch for people deliberately avoiding the detector.

Crucially, College of Policing guidance states that members of the public are not legally obliged to walk through a knife arch when it is being operated in a public place. That does not mean refusing or deliberately avoiding one can never lead to further police attention. Officers may observe behaviour around an arch and, where lawful grounds develop, potentially conduct a stop and search.

The situation can also be different where passing through security is made a condition of entry to a venue, event or other controlled location. Refusing the screening could mean you are denied entry rather than physically compelled to pass through it.

What about a Section 60 order?

Most searches require reasonable suspicion, but there are exceptions.

Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 allows police to search people without individual reasonable suspicion within a defined area for a limited period when the necessary authorisation has been given in circumstances involving serious violence or offensive weapons. PACE Code A sets out the framework governing these searches.

That means someone stopped during an authorised Section 60 operation cannot necessarily argue that the officer needs the same individual grounds that would ordinarily be required for a weapons search.

It is still a regulated police power rather than a blanket ability to search anyone, anywhere, whenever officers choose.

Can police make you remove your clothes?

There are limits to what can happen during a public search. PACE guidance says searches in public should generally involve outer clothing, and GOV.UK guidance states that police should not require someone to remove more than an outer coat, jacket or gloves in public under the ordinary PACE stop and search framework. A more thorough search requiring additional clothing to be removed must take place out of public view.

PACE also contains safeguards surrounding religious head and face coverings. An officer cannot order one removed merely because it obscures identity. Where lawful removal is necessary and religious sensitivities arise, guidance says this should be handled out of public view and, where practicable, with an officer of the same sex present.

How often do stop and searches actually lead to arrest?

The figures help put the power into perspective. Home Office statistics show that, across England and Wales in the year ending March 2025, 14.9% of person stop and searches resulted in an arrest. Around 67.2% resulted in no further action, while other searches produced outcomes including community resolutions, summonses and other police action.

Those figures are part of the reason stop and search remains controversial. Critics question the impact on people searched without prohibited items being discovered, while supporters argue that arrest rates alone do not measure deterrence, intelligence gathering or weapons taken off the streets.

The College of Policing itself describes the evidence that stop and search reduces knife crime as modest and warns that searches perceived as unfair or disrespectful can damage public trust and willingness to cooperate with police.

How are these powers being used in the North East?

Knife arches and stop and search are not theoretical policing tactics in Newcastle and the wider Northumbria Police area.

During a week of Operation Sceptre activity reported by Northumbria Police in December 2024, officers made 173 arrests for various offences. Working alongside Nexus, additional patrols were carried out across the North East transport network, with 141 stop and searches conducted and a knife arch used during the week. More than 400 knives were also handed in during the wider operation.

Nationally, knife crime remains a major policing issue. Government figures show 50,430 offences involving knives or sharp instruments were recorded in England and Wales in the year ending September 2025, down 9% from 55,149 the previous year. Possession offences involving an article with a blade or point, however, increased slightly to 28,596.

Knowing the difference matters.

For anyone encountering officers or knife arches in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland or elsewhere in the North East, the key issue is understanding what type of encounter is actually taking place. An officer asking a question, an invitation to walk through a knife arch and a lawful stop and search are not interchangeable.

If you believe a search has been conducted improperly, challenging officers physically or attempting to leave during a lawful detention is not the way to resolve it. Instead, note the circumstances and officer details where possible and use the appropriate complaints or legal process afterwards.

Have your say.

Would you feel safer with more police checks?