In a recent training event with Approved Mental Health Professionals, the subject came up (AGAIN and AGAIN, actually) about what I call “no warrant, no police” –
This is the practice of police forces responding to requests for officers to attend Mental Health Act assessments in private premises by saying “unless the AMHP has a warrant under 135(1), you can’t have police support for your Mental Health Act assessment”. I have covered this before, but as with various topics in the venn diagram of policing, mental health and criminal justice, it’s a zombie thing that refuses to die and every now and then, we have to re-visit the matter.
So let me pay some people the compliment of being blunt –
If you think “no warrant, no police” will be a proper, defendable response to requests for officers to attend an assessment where no warrant has been secured, you are badly misunderstanding the range of circumstances which can see such requests made. You are also quite unaware of inquests and investigations which have had to get in to the question of warrants being obtained where all of that contributed, at least in part, to someone’s death. You are, literally in some cases, stacking the deck more towards an untoward outcome which will end with you having a very tricky day in a Coroner’s court.
WHY WOULDN’T YOU?
There are various reasons why am AMHP may not have a s135(1) warrant at the point where they are asking the police for support –
- The magistrates declined an application –
- It has been known our AMHP friends have queued at the court, literally for hours, gone in with their application and the Magistrate has listened before saying “No”.
- Perhaps this is because the Magistrate or clerk has misunderstood the law – that has happened to me when applying for a s135(2) warrant; and I know AMHPs who’ve had s135(1) warrants declined in weird circumstances.
- But if it was declined, it was declined – and you might have to crack on regardless because the risk is still there, regardless of the reasonableness of a Magistrate’s decision.
- There is no time to get a warrant, before urgent action is required –
- Sometimes situations are deteriorating rapidly with a risk of suicide or homicide and the services simply need to find a way to come together quickly and act.
- There have been actual deaths in the real world where they were unable to do so with sufficient efficacy.
- Warrants can take hours to secure and it may well be considered the state doesn’t have that long before it will need to mitigate a very real Article 2 or Article 3 ECHR obligation.
- That can, on occasion, just mean getting the AMHP, the police and a doctor to a house and an urgent application being made under s4 MHA to a location where someone can be safely “admitted” to a hospital, even if that urgent admission is actually to a Place of Safety, ahead of a ‘proper’ bed being identified.
- The grounds for swearing out a warrant may not exist –
- s135(1) contains legal criteria around patients being neglected, ill-treated or “kept otherwise than under proper control” (an awful phrase) – or simply being unable to look after themselves whilst living alone.
- If, for example, a young adult patient is relapsing and his mother calls for services to help, it might be his father is the management problem which requires police support because of a history of obstructing the AMHP.
- Obstructing an AMHP in the course of their work is a criminal offence, of course, and therefore a police matter if it’s preventing the MHA assessment from being held or the admission of the patient being achieved.
JOINT PROTOCOLS
It’s worth remembering, the issue of police support for MHA assessments should all be covered off in a joint protocol agreed between the Chief Constable and relevant statutory partners which should at least include the local authority, mental health trust and ambulance service. In some areas, their protocol has been put to the test, perhaps most notable in the inquest after the death of Mr Nigel Abbott in Birmingham in 2019. The details of the sad case can be read in the Preventing Future Death reports from the inquest – there were two – but the salient point for us here is that the joint procedure between those agencies were not up to scratch.
Firstly, it was a policy specifically about s135(1) MHA – not about MHA assessments more generally so the situation of no warrant was not really covered, except in a passing sentence. Secondly, there was no section within that procedure about rapidly deteriorating situations which require urgent intervention. Those two things taken together meant the joint protocol simply had not countenanced the type of situation an AMHP was asked to manage. Add to that a perception by the AMHP service that the police operated a “no warrant, no police” approach and always demanded 24hrs notice to give support, and we see a recipe for disaster.
At the inquest, it was actually shown there was nothing in policy to say “no warrant, no police” or anything to justify the 24hrs perception, but it was nevertheless the honest perception of the local authority and it influenced things. Needless to say the assistant Coroner in his first PFD called mid-inquest for urgent revision of the protocol because it may contribute to a future death. Because that revision had not occurred by the conclusion of the inquest he called for it again in the second PFD in October 2019 and it had still not occurred when I became bored of asking in 2023 despite me revising the protocol for them as a suggested replacement.
LESSONS LEARNED
The insistence that lessons are learned in policing & mental health stands, as the philosophers from Coldplay would no doubt tell us, in pillars of salt and pillars of sand. “No warrant, no police” has been around as an idea for at least fifteen years and I’ve heard it was operating in London even before that.
How we’ve created the situation that by 2025 we haven’t realised that it simply doesn’t work for all situations, misses nuance and in particular leaves unaddressed the three kinds of situation in the bullet points, above, I’ve absolutely no idea. But this is a situation to be considered not just by whatever police leaders are pushing the idea, it is also relevant for call handlers or operational officers who hear of requests for support being declined on the basis of “no warrant, no police”.
People need to stop doing this – it can get people hurt or killed.
There is nothing in law which prevents the police assisting at MHA assessments without a s135(1), it just means their powers to act inside the premises are restricted until such time as the AMHP makes a MHA application for admission or until there is a crime or a breach of the peace. It would be better if warrants were sworn out as it significant increases the ability of officers to ensure safety, which is ultimately what they’re there for. But just because no warrant exists, doesn’t mean there isn’t on obligation on the police to maintain the King’s Peace or mitigate an article 2 or article 3 risk.
This needs shouting again: “no warrant, no police” is a genuinely stupid and dangerous idea.
Awarded the President’s Medal, by
the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2026
I am not a police officer.
I try to keep this blog up to date, but inevitably over time, amendments to the law as well as court rulings and other findings from inquests and complaints processes mean it is difficult to ensure all the articles and pages remain current. Please ensure you check all legal issues in particular and take appropriate professional advice where necessary.
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