Andi90:
'The orders are issued by Magistrates not the Police and are fully tested in Court.'
BBC news item:
'They are civil orders imposed by magistrates at the request of police.'
So how does the magistrate come to the conclusion that this order is justified seeing as any previous convictions are not revealed to him/her unless the defendant is found guilty by the court.
Never actually applied for one or been present in a court when an application for an order of this type has been made, but you're right, there may be no previous convictions. That said if there are previous convictions, in many civil applications previous convictions can be used as evidence of bad character, such as in ASBO cases, or DVPN's. - but don't quote me on that one I'm no expert on civil matters.
There may however be quite a bit of intelligence, from the Police, family members and Social services etc., that paints an overall picture. The application is a civil matter so it wouldn't be made at the Criminal trial (irrespective of the person being found guilty or not guilty).
All the Police can do is apply for the order, they cannot make the minds up of the Magistrates and I suspect they've probably got certain criteria that they need to be satisfied with before they grant the order.
I would also think that the persons Solicitors are also in Court arguing the case for not imposing the order. So it should be a balanced hearing.
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