The Port of Tilbury Police is a non- Home Office ports police force responsible for the

Port of Tilbury The Port of Tilbury is a port on the River Thames at Tilbury in Essex, England. It is the principal port for London, as well as being the main United Kingdom port for handling the importation of paper. There are extensive facilities for contai ...

, and Tilbury 2 owned by the Port of Tilbury London Ltd, a subsidiary of

Forth Ports Forth Ports Limited is a port operator in the United Kingdom based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is owned by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. History Fort Ports was established in 1967 as the Forth Ports Authority. It became responsible ...

plc. The force consists of a Chief of Police, Police Inspector, three Police Sergeants and ten Police Constables.

History

The force was originally formed in 1909 as the Port of London Police following Parliament's passing of the PLA Act on 21 December the previous year. The PLA took over control of all London's commercial docks from three separate private companies – the London and India Docks Company (running

London Docks London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London. It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Newham, and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port ...

, St Katharines Dock,

Tilbury Docks The Port of Tilbury is a port on the River Thames at Tilbury in Essex, England. It is the principal port for London, as well as being the main United Kingdom port for handling the importation of paper. There are extensive facilities for contai ...

, Royal Albert Dock and

Royal Victoria Dock The Royal Victoria Dock is the largest of three docks in the Royal Docks of east London, now part of the redeveloped Docklands. History Although, the structure was in place in the year 1850, it was opened in 1855, on a previously uninhabit ...

), the Surrey Commercial Docks Company and the

Millwall Dock Company The Millwall Freehold Land and Dock Company was a 19th-century company set up to develop the central area of the Isle of Dogs in London's East End. Originally called the Millwall Canal, Wharfs and Graving Docks Company, the Act for the incorporati ...

. Each of those companies had had its own private police force to police its docks and these were merged to form the new PLA Police, with jurisdiction in the docks themselves and within a mile of them. Additionally Thames Division of the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

had originally been founded in 1798 as the

Thames River Police The Thames River Police was formed in 1800 to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London and in the lower reaches and docks of the Thames. It replaced the Marine Police, a police force established in 1798 by magistrate ...

to police shipping in the

Pool of London The Pool of London is a stretch of the River Thames from London Bridge to below Limehouse. Part of the Tideway of the Thames, the Pool was navigable by tall-masted vessels bringing coastal and later overseas goods—the wharves there were th ...

Fallen Officers

Eight of the force's officers drowned in the docks between 1913 and 1951, with other fatal casualties from being run over by a train, crushed under part of a ship's cargo and falling into a dry dock. The docks were badly hit during the Blitz and PC Robert Charles Winney and Sergeant Charles Edward Showell received posthumous King's Commendations for Brave Conduct in Civil Defence after being killed by an unexploded bomb on the night of 18-19 September. In 1992 the PLA Police was downsized, delimited to just the Port of Tilbury and given its present name – the other docks are now policed by the

, particularly its

Marine Support Unit The Marine Policing Unit (MPU) is the waterborne policing unit of London's Metropolitan Police Service, forming part of the Met Taskforce (MO7) within Met Operations. Its 22 vessels are responsible for waterborne policing of the River Thames in ...

Modern Day

In 2000 the force was reduced from 20 officers, to 11. The CID was disbanded. In 2018, there were fifteen police officers in the force.

Rank Structure

The Port of Tilbury Police has a rank structure. The rank structure is below (junior ranks from the left). The numbers worn are known as "collar numbers" and are used to identify police officers. Generally they are only worn by uniformed officers, below the rank of Inspector.

Powers of constables

Port constables are appointed by the port company (

), and are attested by a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or '' puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the s ...

.section 154, Port of London Act 1968
The oath is given b
Schedule 6
to the Port of London Act 1968. The port company can suspend or terminate the appointment of a port constable. A port constable has all the powers and privileges of his office within the "port police area"section 155, Port of London Act 1968
(which is land that is owned by the port company and used for the port)section 2, Port of London Act 1968
and anywhere within one mile of that land. In addition, if a port constable pursues a suspect from the port police area, he has the same powers of arrest as he would ''in'' the port police area. Impersonating a port constable is an offence.section 160, Port of London Act 1968

Entry

A port constable may enter any vessel within the port police area (and can take people with him to assist if he thinks it necessary):section 156, Port of London Act 1968
*if, with reasonable cause, he suspects that an

indictable offence In many common law jurisdictions (e.g. England and Wales, Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore), an indictable offence is an offence which can only be tried on an indictment after a preliminary hearing ...

has been, or is about to be, committed on board the vessel, or *in order to arrest a person whom he may lawfully arrest, or *if, with reasonable cause, he believes that by so doing he will be able to facilitate the detection of an indictable offence committed, or the prevention of an indictable offence which he, with reasonable cause, suspects is about to be committed, within the port police area. A port constable may seize anything found on board which he, with reasonable cause, suspects to have been stolen or otherwise unlawfully obtained.

Entry and search

A port constable may, within the port premises, enter and search a vessel or vehicle if he, with reasonable cause, suspects that he might find anything which has been stolen or otherwise unlawfully obtained: *on or from the port premises, or *on or from a vessel either in a dock of the Port Authority or at a pier provided by the Port Authority. A port constable may seize anything found on board the vessel or in the vehicle which he with reasonable cause suspects to have been so stolen or obtained unlawfully.

Stop and search

Any constable (not just a port constable) may, within the port police area, stop and search a person whom he, with reasonable cause, suspects of having or conveying in any manner anything which has been stolen or otherwise unlawfully obtained:section 157, Port of London Act 1968
*on or from the port premises, or *on or from a vessel either in a dock of the Port Authority or at a pier provided by the Port Authority.

Other provisions

It is an offence to resist, obstruct or impede a constable in the execution of his duty, or to not carry out the lawful orders of a constable.section 201, Port of London Act 1968
A constable may detain a person who, after being warned by an officer of the Port Authority not to do so, gets on to, or remains, on a movable bridge belonging to the Port Authority, when it is about to be moved, or is being moved, or before it is properly closed and fastened, if that person's name and address is unknown to and cannot be ascertained by the constable.section 202, Port of London Act 1968
Serious or major incidents or crimes become the responsibility of the local

territorial police force A territorial police force is a police service that is responsible for an area defined by sub-national boundaries, distinguished from other police services which deal with the entire country or a type of crime. In countries organized as federations, ...

police force,

Essex Police Essex Police is a territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Essex, in the East of England. Essex Police is responsible for a population of over 1.8 million people and an area of . The chief constable is Ben-Julian Harr ...

Other legislation

The Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Specified Police Forces) Order 1985

The Port of Tilbury Police are recognised as a 'specified police force' whom can instigate criminal proceedings under the auspices of the Crown Prosecution Service.article 2, The Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Specified Police Forces) Order 1985

The Police Regulations 2003

The Port of Tilbury Police are the only port constabulary where the length of service of constables is recognised for the purposes of reckonable service should they join a territorial police force or the British Transport Police. section 42, The Police Regulations 2003

Marine Navigation Act 2013

Port of Tilbury police officers are classed as 'port constables' by virtue of section 7section 7, Marine Navigation Act 2013
/ref> of the Act, which allows a chief officer of a territorial police force to grant permission for port constables to act within the relevant territorial police area in relation to port police business. As of July 2014, the Port of Tilbury Police had not applied to the Chief Constable of Essex to extend their jurisdiction to that of the police force area of Essex Police in relation to port police business.

References

External links

Port of Tilbury Police