Can a person be 'further arrested'?
On tonight's news there was considerable coverage of the potentially tragic case of Becky Watts, a young teenager who has been missing for over a week.
A spokesman for the Bristol police made the announcement that the man and woman who had been arrested two days ago on suspicion of her kidnap, had now been further arrested on suspicion of her murder. (So far no body has been discovered and one must assume that the reason the police have done this is to strengthen their case with the magistrates to allow them to hold the couple without charge beyond the normal time limit, for further questioning.)
From a language point of view I have concerns as to whether it is possible to further arrest a person. The ODO definition of arrest is seize someone by legal authority and take them into custody. Given that the couple concerned were already in custody I fail to see how they could have been further arrested.
What other term do contributors think might have been used instead?
Solution 1:
According to UK POLICE AND CRIMINAL EVIDENCE ACT 1984:
(PACE) CODE G REVISED
CODE OF PRACTICE FOR THE STATUTORY POWER OF
ARREST BY POLICE OFFICERS Further arrested is a legal term
which means the extension of arrest time of a person already in police
custody (first arrested) on the grounds of new evidence or new/
additional charge/charges. The above code uses the term further arrested several times.
2.6 Extending the power of arrest to all offences provides a constable with the ability to use that power to deal with any situation. However applying the necessity criteria requires the constable to examine and justify the reason or reasons why a person needs to be arrested or (as the case may be) further arrested, for an offence for the custody officer to decide whether to authorise their detention for that offence. See Note 2C
3.3 A person who is arrested, or further arrested, must be informed at the time if practicable, or if not, as soon as it becomes practicable thereafter, that they are under arrest and of the grounds and reasons for their arrest, see paragraphs 2.2 and Note 3.
I think the answer lies within the word "further":
- farther; 'rode across the valley and up the further slopes' — T. E. Lawrence.
- going or extending beyond : additional; 'further volumes' 'further education'
Thus further arrested implies additional arrest time, i.e. extending beyond the originally specified arrest period, usually 24 hours without charge, or extending beyond the initial charge.
Solution 2:
"Further" is a generic modifier here.
Just as in:
I went to town to get some eggs and, further, some cheese
The "further" doesn't relate to any extra distance that I travelled: it just emphasises that the cheese was an add-on to my plan (or, at least, to my plan as originally described).
Similarly:
the man and woman who had been arrested two days ago on suspicion of her kidnap, had now been further arrested on suspicion of her murder
They were arrested on suspicion of kidnap and now, further, they've been arrested on suspicion of murder.
The appearance of "further arrested" in the relevant legal statute is assuredly an instance of this, rather than some defining, made-up-for-the-purpose idiom.
Consider also:
furthermore
further to
Solution 3:
The phrase "further arrested" makes sense to me in connection with nouns like attention, as in
My attention, already piqued by the light shining from rooms on on the upper floor of the abandoned house, was further arrested by sounds of a scuffle from somewhere inside the mansion.
But in the context of a police action, arrest has a specific meaning that doesn't seem well-suited to combining the verb with further. Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary puts the relevant definition this way:
arrest vt (14c) ... 2 : SEIZE CAPTURE; specif to take or keep in custody by authority of law
And just as it doesn't make complete sense to talk about "seizing someone further" or "capturing someone further," or "taking or keeping someone further in custody"—as though custody were a labyrinth that one could go deeper and deeper into—it doesn't sound right (to me) to speak of "arresting someone further." Being under arrest is thus in one basic but crucial way like being pregnant: You either are or you aren't.
If the writer's goal is to indicate that additional charges being leveled against suspects who are already under arrest, a better way to put it might be to say that "further charges have been filed" against the suspects. If no formal charges have been filed in court, but the suspects remain under arrest while the authorities pursue additional suspicions, you might try this wording:
The suspects previously arrested on suspicion of kidnapping are now also being held on the further suspicion of murder.
If, on the other hand, the goal is to describe a situation where suspects have been arrested on one charge, then released, and then arrested again on another charge, a better way to describe the situation might be to say something like this:
The man and woman who were arrested two days ago on suspicion of kidnapping have now been detained on suspicion of murder.
There is no need for the word further in this last summary.