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Section 4 PACE meaning
What does Section 4 PACE mean?
Section 4 PACE is the statutory framework for police “road checks” in England and Wales. In practice, it permits a constable, acting under written authorisation from a senior officer as specified in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, to conduct a systematic check of vehicles in a defined locality to establish whether a vehicle is carrying: a person who has committed an offence; a witness to an offence; a person intending to commit an offence; or a person unlawfully at large. Stops are effected using section 163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, which empowers constables to stop any vehicle being driven on a road.
The power is defined in legislation and is subject to necessity, proportionality and record‑keeping requirements, including clear grounds, location and duration. A road check does not of itself confer a search power; any search must be justified under a separate statutory provision (for example, section 1 PACE).
Jurisdiction: PACE applies only in England and Wales. Comparable police powers to stop vehicles exist under separate regimes in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Garda Síochána operate checkpoints under Irish road traffic legislation. “Section 4 PACE” is therefore an England and Wales–specific term.
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View the related News about Section 4 PACE
NEWS
Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025: NSIP overhaul, new planning fees and delegation, strategic plans, Environmental Delivery Plans and levy, development corporations, and compulsory purchase/hope value reforms
The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 It represents the end point of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which arrived in the House of Commons in March 2025. As it moved through Parliament, the Bill was repeatedly reworked at Committee, Report and Third Reading in the Commons, then further altered again by the Lords. In the government’s press release, the Act is cast very firmly as advancing a growth-first programme. It is widely hailed as a ‘landmark’ reform set to ‘tear down barriers to growth’ and to ‘get spades in the ground faster’, with Ministers explicitly highlighting its purpose in freeing schemes ‘stuck in planning limbo’ and in bringing forward more homes, cleaner energy and essential infrastructure at a much greater pace. The Housing Secretary has presented it as beginning ‘a new era to build 1.5 million homes’, while the Chancellor has underlined that it is meant to draw a line under years of ‘dither and delay’ on national flagship projects. The Act sits within the government’s broader planning and...
18 December
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View the related Practice Notes about Section 4 PACE
PRACTICE NOTES
PACE 1984: Excluded and Special Procedure Material—Definitions, Access Conditions, Production Orders and Search Warrants (England and Wales)
Section 9 and Schedule 1 to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE 1984) Section 9 and Schedule 1 of PACE 1984 set out a route by which the police may obtain access, for the purposes of a criminal investigation, to material that is not reachable via an application to the magistrates’ court under s 8, namely ‘excluded material’ and ‘special procedure material’. Where the statutory access conditions are satisfied, an application can be pursued to discharge the prosecution’s duty to follow reasonable lines of enquiry, rather than to gather evidence on which the Crown intends to rely. An application under PACE 1984, s 9 and Sch 1 is made to a circuit judge of the Crown Court, seeking either a production order or a search and seizure warrant. For guidance on making applications to obtain excluded material and special procedure material under PACE 1984, s 9 and Sch 1, and on challenging such orders, see Practice Note: Excluded material and special procedure material under PACE 1984—applications and...
21 May
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