Ms Anne Marie McMahon:

In the context of the warning, I again give the analogy of section 8 of the public order Act. The warning would be part of a continuum in the context of asking someone to desist from a given behaviour. If the person does not do that, he or she is committing an offence, so his or her name and address are taken and the process moves on. It is not as though the warning would be separate to the incident. It would be an integral part, that is, the first step of the investigative process in the context of identifying a breach or not. If the individual moves away, he or she is not committing an offence under the public order Act as we understand it.

The question is whether that is the way we want to go. Is the warning some kind of offence or does it need to be recorded? Heretofore, we would not ordinarily record a warning. It is the resultant action of the warning that gives us the power to proceed to investigate the offence or, in the case of the public order Act, to make an arrest.