I’m watching an episode of the British police mystery tv show “Endeavor” and there’s a scene where the detectives show up at a house, knock on the door and when nobody answers, they just open the door and walk in. As a fan of Brit dramas, I’ve seen this happen several times before and was wondering;
Is this legal in the UK, wouldn’t they need a search warrant?
(by the way, the show is set in 1967)
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British cops in '67 didn't care much for rules and many especially in London were corrupt.
telebision is not real life
Don't know about the UK but here in Sweden they don't need a warrant.
> British cops in '67 didn't care much for rules and many especially in London were corrupt.
It’s set in Oxford but the situation isn’t even presented as rule bending, let alone corruption and both cops on the tv show are straight-arrow types.
Judging from this and other Brit cop shows I've seen, it appears to be standard operating procedure for the police to just walk into a house if nobody is home?
> telebision is not real life
Sure but this isn’t a fantasy or sci-fi tv series, it a police procedural / mystery tv show where a lot of effort is put into making it appear like the 1960s, so I can’t imagine the producers would disregard a detail like cops just walking into someone’s house without a search warrant, if it was illegal or crooked behavior?
>implying american cops dont just walk into your house and shoot you and can do it without a warrant if they have probable cause
Seriously? Is this the norm in Europe - the cops can just walk into your house and snoop around?
Is this what Europeans tell themselves to feel better?
Yes it is, and I have 18 refugees raping my asshole as I type this
>probable cause
Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about, this wasn't a case of some girl in the house screaming or something justifying the cops busting in, the cops arrived, peaked thru the windows, knocked on the door and then just walked in when nobody answered.
Shouldn’t you be off looking for leprechaun gold or getting your ass kicked by the Black & Tans?
They can stop your car and search it too if they think you're suspicious.
They probably are able to, but I doubt they ever would unless they had actual reason to
I've never seen it
They're able to do that here, but being able to enter someone's house without a warrant seems incomprehensible and backwards to us in the US
What's up with the show then? OP's right, it's unlikely that the writers just fucked it up or didn't care, the whole can't-enter-without-a-search-warrant thing is a trope that's a borderline cliché in police dramas and procedurals. It's an easy source for tension or drama, a pretty convenient device to lead into a reveal like "holy shit cops and judges are all corrupt, they won't give out a search warrant for this asshole's place because they're on the take!", etc. Shit, one of the most famous scenes in Se7en is dedicated to this shit. It's seriously doubtful they'd miss that. What gives?
>What's up with the show then?
It's not real life.
It's a fucking show, Jesus Christ it's meant for entertainment so it's not going to be 10000% accurate
American cops also do it on TV.
NCIS
CSI
BlackList
Did you read what I said? Of course it's not, but it's like if the protagonist of a boxing drama suddenly headbutted his opponent in the final fight and the judges announced his victory: that's not fucking allowed and everyone knows that, so it takes you out of the movie and makes you think "who the fuck wrote that?"
No, but it might happen if they are checking on someone (i.e an old person that is ill or someone they think is in danger) its not in the rules but its a common sense thing anyone would do.
Otherwise for searching , yes, warrant.
they can also conduct impromptu cavity searches without any warrant needed