Picture the scene the SQE1 examiner loves to build. A suspect has been arrested at 2am on suspicion of assault. He has been in custody for 22 hours, the custody officer wants more time, and the question asks you the single best next step. Panic? Only if you have not drilled the PACE detention clock. This is the part of Criminal Law and Practice that trips up candidates who revised the elements of offences but skipped the procedural machinery around them.
Criminal Law and Practice sits in FLK2, and it rewards precise, dateable knowledge. Vague recall of "the police can hold you for a while" earns nothing. Let me walk through the high-yield areas the way I would with a candidate three weeks out from the exam.
The PACE Detention Clock: The Numbers You Must Know
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) governs how long the police may detain someone without charge. The exam wants exact figures, so learn them cold.
- The basic limit is 24 hours from the "relevant time" (usually arrival at the station).
- An officer of at least the rank of superintendent can authorise a further 12 hours, taking it to 36 hours, but only for an indictable offence.
- Beyond that, only a magistrates' court can extend detention, first to 72 hours and ultimately to a maximum of 96 hours.
So in the 22-hour scenario above, the custody officer cannot simply help himself to more time; assault is not automatically indictable, and the superintendent's power only applies to indictable offences. Reviews of detention are also examinable: the first review by the review officer must happen no later than six hours after detention is authorised, then at intervals of no more than nine hours. When a question mentions a specific hour, it is almost always testing whether you spot a missed review or an unlawful extension.
Exam tip: write the detention timeline on your rough paper the moment you see a custody fact pattern — 24, 36, 96 hours, plus the 6-hour and 9-hour review points. It converts a stressful clock question into a two-second check.
Police Station Advice and the Right to Legal Help
A detained person has the right to free and independent legal advice under PACE, and the right to have someone informed of their arrest. Both rights can be delayed — but only in tightly defined circumstances, and this is where marks live.
Delay of legal advice requires authorisation by an officer of at least superintendent rank, is available only for an indictable offence, and only on specified grounds such as a belief that exercising the right will lead to interference with evidence or harm to others. The maximum delay is 36 hours. Notice how the same rank and offence thresholds recur — the SRA specification tests whether you can apply them consistently rather than recite them in isolation.
Then there is the interview itself. The appropriate adult must be present where the suspect is a juvenile or a vulnerable person. If a question gives you a 16-year-old interviewed without an appropriate adult, or a suspect denied a solicitor for a summary-only offence, the single best answer usually turns on that procedural breach and its effect on admissibility under sections 76 and 78 of PACE.
Silence and Adverse Inferences
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 allows a court to draw adverse inferences from silence in defined situations — for example, failing to mention a fact later relied on in defence (section 34). But no inference can be drawn where the suspect was not allowed access to legal advice before questioning. Expect a scenario that pairs a "no comment" interview with a solicitor who was wrongly refused; the point being tested is that the safeguard blocks the inference.
Bail: The Right, the Exceptions and the Conditions
Bail is one of the densest topics in FLK2 Criminal Practice, and it appears in both police and court settings. Start from the presumption in the Bail Act 1976: a defendant generally has a right to bail. Your job in the exam is to spot when that right is displaced.
For an imprisonable offence, the main exceptions arise where the court is satisfied there are substantial grounds to believe the defendant would fail to surrender, commit further offences, or interfere with witnesses. When you weigh those grounds, the court looks at factors such as the nature and seriousness of the offence, the defendant's character and community ties, and their previous record on bail. A question that lists a defendant with two prior failures to surrender and a fixed address is inviting you to balance those factors, not to reach for a single rule.
If bail is granted but risk remains, the answer is often conditional bail rather than remand in custody. Conditions must be necessary and proportionate — residence, reporting to a police station, a curfew, or a surety. Watch for questions where a heavy condition is imposed for a minor risk; disproportionate conditions are wrong answers.
A defendant refused bail by the magistrates can generally make one further fully argued application, and can appeal to the Crown Court. Knowing the route of challenge is exactly the practical, "what do you do next" knowledge the SBA format rewards.
Classification of Offences and Allocation
You cannot answer procedure questions without slotting the offence into the right box. Three categories drive everything:
- Summary only — tried in the magistrates' court (for example, common assault, most driving offences).
- Either way — may be tried in either court (for example, theft, ABH under section 47).
- Indictable only — must go to the Crown Court (for example, robbery, murder).
For an either-way offence, the allocation procedure decides venue. The magistrates consider whether their sentencing powers are adequate; if they accept jurisdiction, the defendant may still elect Crown Court trial. This classification feeds straight back into earlier topics — remember that the superintendent's extra 12 hours of detention and the power to delay legal advice both hinge on the offence being indictable. Get the category wrong and a chain of later answers collapses.
Actus Reus, Mens Rea and Common Offences
The substantive law still matters. You need the elements of theft under the Theft Act 1968 (appropriation, property, belonging to another, dishonesty, intention to permanently deprive), the ladder of non-fatal offences from assault and battery up to section 18 wounding with intent, and the distinction between murder and manslaughter. The dishonesty test from Ivey v Genting Casinos is a favourite, as is the objective/subjective split in recklessness after R v G. Learn these as building blocks, not essays — the SBA gives you a fact pattern and one correct label.
How to Revise Criminal Practice for the SBA Format
Because SQE1 is 180 single best answer questions per paper, timing is unforgiving — roughly a minute and a half per question across the 5 hours 20 minutes. Reading a criminal scenario twice is a luxury you cannot always afford, so build reflexes.
Three habits pay off. Turn every rule with a number into a flashcard and test the number, not the concept. Practise sorting offences by classification the instant you read them, because venue and police powers flow from that. And when you get a practice question wrong, write one sentence explaining why the distractor was tempting — the examiner reuses the same traps across the bank.
Quick self-check: can you state the maximum detention without charge, the rank needed to delay legal advice, and the three main grounds to refuse bail — from memory, in under a minute? If not, that is tonight's revision.
Criminal Law and Practice is really a set of interlocking timelines and thresholds. Once the PACE clock, the bail exceptions and the offence categories are automatic, the questions stop feeling like traps and start feeling like a checklist.
If you would like structured drilling on this, the CELE SQE courses cover all 13 FLK subjects with practice built to the SRA format — the Short-term Course is £1,750, the Mid-term £2,750, and the Long-term £3,720, with a single-FLK option at half price if you only need FLK2. Many candidates pair a course with the SQE1 Question Bank at £575 per month to keep testing those detention and bail numbers until they are second nature. Questions? Reach us at WeChat SQE100, [email protected] or celebar.com — no pressure, just point us at the topic that is bothering you.