Page:Police (Property) Act 1897 (UKPGA Vict-60-61-30 qp).pdf/1

 Rh CHAPTER 30.

An Act to make further provision with respect to the Disposal of Property in the Possession of the Police.

E it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1.—(1.) Where any property has come into the possession of the police in connexion with any criminal charge or under section sixty-six of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, section forty-eightof the Act of the session of the second and third years of Her present Majesty, chapter ninety-four (local), for regulating the Police in the city of London, section one hundred and three of the Larceny Act, 1861, or section thirty-four of the Pawnbrokers Act, 1872, a court of summary jurisdiction may, on application either by an officer of police or by a claimant of the property, make an order for the delivery of the property to the person appearing to the magistrate or court to be the owner thereof, or, if the owner cannot be ascertained, make such order with respect to the property as to the magistrate or court may seem meet.

(2.) An order under this section shall not affect the right of any person to take within six months from the date of the order legal proceedings against any person in possession of property delivered by virtue of the order for the recovery of the property, but on the expiration of those six months the right shall cease.

(3.) In any part of the metropolitan police district for which a police court is established under the Metropolitan Police Courts Acts, 1839 and 1840, the powers of a court of summary jurisdiction under this section shall be exercised by a metropolitan police magistrate.

2.—(1.) A Secretary of State may make regulations for the disposal of property which has come into the possession of the police under the circumstances mentioned in this Act in cases where the owner of the property has not been ascertained and no order of a competent court has been made with respect thereto.

(2.) The regulations may authorise the sale of any such property, and the application of the proceeds of any such sale, and the 1