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On 29 June 2026 a large block of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 came into force. The coverage focused on knives and protest. What actually went live is narrower than the headlines suggested, and in places it is more consequential: new offences that turn entirely on what a person intended, street-level powers that rest on an inspector’s authorisation rather than a court’s, and a set of consequences that continue long after a case ends. Equally important is what did not commence. Several of the powers being reported as live are not yet in force at all. This is a defence reading of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 police powers as they now stand, and of where early engagement still has the most leverage.
The Crime and Policing Bill completed its passage and received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026, becoming the Crime and Policing Act 2026. Like most modern criminal justice statutes, it does not switch on all at once. It commences in tranches, and 29 June 2026 was the first significant date. Nothing in the Bill became law on the day it passed, and only a minority of the Act is in force even now.
Two separate mechanisms operated on that date, which is one reason the reporting has been confused. Some provisions came into force automatically two months after Royal Assent under the Act’s own commencement section. The expansion of corporate criminal liability under section 250 arrived this way, attributing an offence to a body corporate where a senior manager commits it within the actual or apparent scope of their authority, across England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We covered that reform separately in our article on what the Crime and Policing Act 2026 means for corporate criminal liability. The Home Secretary then made the first commencement regulations, formally the Crime and Policing Act 2026 (Commencement No.1 and Saving Provision) Regulations 2026, bringing a much longer list into force on the same day.
A provision of this Act becomes law when secondary legislation says it does, not when the Bill passed and not when a newspaper reports it. Until then the existing framework applies unchanged. So “in force from 29 June” is accurate for two quite different sets of provisions, and the reverse trap is live: a provision can be widely described as in force and still be waiting for a commencement date.
Reading the regulations rather than the coverage, the commenced provisions fall into recognisable groups.
Several of these are partial commencements, and one paragraph of Schedule 21 is in force only for the purpose of making regulations. That level of granularity matters. Whether a specific subsection was live on the date of the conduct alleged is a question that can decide a case, and it is not a question that press summaries answer.
This is the part most likely to mislead, and it is worth stating plainly. The following measures were not brought into force by the first commencement regulations.
Respect Orders. The new civil order aimed at adult anti-social behaviour has been reported repeatedly as though it were operating. Respect Orders remain subject to further commencement, regulations and guidance.
When they arrive, Respect Orders will replace the existing civil injunction for adults engaged in anti-social behaviour, made by a court on the civil standard, with a power of arrest for breach. Dispersal powers and the anti-social behaviour case review process are also reshaped by the Act. None of that is operating yet. If you are told you are subject to a Respect Order today, ask which provision it was made under, because the answer should not be this Act.
Entry and search without a warrant for electronically tracked stolen goods. The power that attracted the most attention, and one described in professional commentary as already live. It amends the Theft Act 1968 to allow entry, search and seizure where property has been electronically tracked to premises, on an inspector’s authorisation, where a warrant cannot practicably be obtained first. It is a significant power. It is not yet in force.
Expanded drug testing on arrest. The extension beyond Class A to specified Class B and C drugs is likewise awaiting commencement.
Most of the headline measures. The Act runs to over 70 measures and the ones that led the coverage are largely still to come. The new knife crime and offensive weapons offences, the specific offence of assaulting a retail worker, the child criminal exploitation and cuckooing offences, and the measures aimed at serious violence and organised crime were not commenced by the first regulations. They will arrive. They are not law today, and no charge can be brought under a provision that has not been commenced.
This matters to someone under investigation, not just to a legislation-watcher. A power that is not in force cannot lawfully be exercised, and evidence obtained by asserting a power that did not exist on the date in question can be challenged. Where police officers rely on a provision, the questions are always the same: which provision, was it in force, was it exercised within its limits. We do not take the first two on trust.
It cuts the other way too. Some provisions came into force immediately on 29 June with no transitional period, so conduct on 28 June and identical conduct on 30 June can sit on opposite sides of a new criminal offence. Establishing the date precisely is the first task in any case under this Act.
The powers commenced in June share a structure. A senior officer, usually of at least inspector rank, makes a decision, and that decision unlocks a power that would otherwise not exist. There is no judge in that chain. The authorisation is the safeguard, which makes the authorisation where a defence begins.
Section 8 amends section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002, which allows a constable to seize motor vehicles being used in a manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance. Previously an officer in uniform had to warn the driver first, unless a warning was impracticable. Section 8 removes the warning requirement, so police can now seize vehicles on the spot.
The threshold conditions did not disappear with the warning. The use still has to fall within the statutory description, and the officer still needs reasonable grounds amounting to reasonable suspicion. Removing the step in the middle shifts the whole weight of the power onto that initial judgement, and where a vehicle carries genuine value, the loss and the recovery costs arrive long before any court tests it. This amends existing powers rather than creating a new power, so the case law on section 59 continues to apply.
Sections 157 to 159 create an offence of wearing face coverings, or any item that conceals a person’s identity, within an area designated for that purpose. The designation is made by a senior police officer of at least inspector rank and runs for a limited period, reported as 24 hours. Section 167 extends the related power to remove face coverings to the British Transport Police and the Ministry of Defence Police.
The offence is bounded in place and time, so the same conduct is lawful a street away or an hour later. It also depends on the designation being validly made and, in practice, on the person being in a position to know they were inside it. Where the state relies on a designation to convert ordinary conduct into a criminal offence, we expect strict proof of that designation: its scope, its timing, and how it was communicated. That is not a technicality. It is the difference between an offence and no offence.
Section 160 creates an offence of possessing a pyrotechnic article at a protest, with defences covering cultural or religious events and work purposes. Section 161 makes it an offence to climb a memorial specified in Schedule 17. Section 162 creates an offence of protesting outside the home of a public office holder, and section 169 addresses harassment of a person in their home.
Two changes to how protests are policed sit alongside these, both operating on the public order framework in the Public Order Act 1986. Section 166 widens senior officers’ powers to impose conditions on public processions and assemblies, and section 165 requires them to take account of relevant cumulative disruption, meaning the effect of repeat protests in the same area over time rather than the single event in front of them. A condition can therefore rest on serious disruption caused by earlier protests, which makes its evidential basis a proper subject of scrutiny.
These offences will mostly be charged against people with no previous contact with the criminal justice system. A professional facing a first allegation is managing three problems at once: the criminal case, an employer or regulator who will learn of it, and the reputational exposure that follows a charge into the public domain. The criminal outcome is often the least damaging of the three, and it is the only one anybody advises on if the case runs its course unchallenged.
Section 11 creates an offence of trespassing with intent to commit a criminal offence. Trespass alone has generally been a civil matter in England and Wales. This provision converts it into a criminal offence when a particular state of mind is added.
That puts intent at the centre of the case. The physical element is usually undisputed and easy to prove: a person was somewhere they had no right to be. Everything then turns on what the prosecution says was in their mind, which is almost always inferred from surrounding circumstances. Inference-based intent cases are the ones most sensitive to early defence work, because the material that explains a presence innocently, the message showing why someone was there, the account of who they were with, degrades fastest. Nobody preserves it for you.
Section 12, arranging or facilitating begging for gain, is built the same way. It is aimed at organised exploitation rather than at the person begging, and what separates the offence from lawful conduct is the arrangement and the gain, not the presence of a person asking for money.
Sections 176(7) and 177 cover the extraction of online information: the treatment of confidential information, and the code of practice governing how the power is exercised. The underlying regime sits in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and concerns access to online accounts connected to a lawfully obtained device.
For most of our clients, this is the most intrusive part of a modern investigation. A phone is not a phone. It is a decade of correspondence, financial records, health information, legally privileged material, and the private lives of people who are not suspected of anything. Once a code of practice governs a power, compliance with that code becomes a live issue in every case relying on its product. Confidential and privileged material has to be identified and protected, and where it is not, that is a matter to raise before the material is reviewed, not after.
Section 181 separately widens police access to driver licensing records beyond road traffic purposes. On its own that is modest. Read alongside the extraction provisions it is the same direction of travel: investigators reaching data held elsewhere, earlier, with less friction than before.
Some of the June commencements have little to do with police powers and everything to do with what happens to a person afterwards. These are the provisions we watch most closely, because their effects are the hardest to undo.
Section 103 and Schedule 14 deal with reporting and registration for intimate image material offences, alongside the new offences in sections 98 to 101, which include purported intimate image generators and provisions requiring the takedown of intimate image content. The Home Office material describes the section 99 offence of making or supplying an intimate image generator as an either-way offence carrying up to three years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
Registration and notification requirements are where the real weight sits. Where it is considered that an offence may have been proved to be committed to obtain sexual gratification, notification requirements apply automatically. That means signing onto the sex register. A sentence ends. A notification requirement follows a person through employment, travel, insurance and family life. Where the allegation involves images, the ancillary consequences are frequently more serious than the sentence itself, which is why these cases should never be approached as though the outcome at court is the only question. We have written separately on how image offences are charged and defended across our criminal defence work.
Section 188 concerns cautions given to persons with limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom. This is the quietest provision in the June list and, for a particular group of people, the most dangerous.
A caution is routinely presented in a police station as the fast way out. Admit it, accept the caution, go home. For someone whose right to be in this country depends on their immigration status, and for regulated professionals whose registration depends on disclosure, it is not a way out. It is an admission reaching into visas, settlement applications, professional registration and employment, none of which is explained across a custody desk. A decision taken in twenty minutes cannot be unpicked in twenty months.
Section 189(1) and Schedule 21 begin commencement of the reformed confiscation regime for England and Wales under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, one paragraph of it only for the purpose of making regulations. For anyone with assets, confiscation casts the longest shadow in a case, reaching across property, business interests and family finances, and outlasting the sentence. Reforms making benefit easier to calculate and orders easier to enforce tend to widen their reach. Address the financial dimension in the first week, not the last.
Read together, the June commencements point one way. More conduct is criminalised. More of the new offences turn on a state of mind rather than on an act. More powers rest on an internal police authorisation rather than a judicial one. More consequences attach outside the sentence, in registration, immigration status, and asset recovery. Each of those is an argument for engaging early rather than waiting.
We act for individuals across England and Wales who are under investigation or expect to be, and under this Act our work at the pre-charge stage comes down to four things. We establish what was actually in force on the date of the conduct alleged, which the current tranche makes a real issue rather than a theoretical one. We require strict proof of any designation or senior officer’s authorisation: who gave it, on what basis, over what area, for what period, and how it was communicated. Where an offence turns on a state of mind, we secure the material explaining the conduct innocently while it still exists, and put it in front of the decision-maker rather than saving it for a trial that should not happen. Registration, immigration status, professional regulation and confiscation are addressed from the outset, not after.
The charging decision is not a formality. The Crown must be satisfied there is a realistic prospect of conviction and that prosecution is in the public interest. Both limbs can be addressed by written representations before that decision is taken, and in the right case that is how a matter ends in no further action rather than in a courtroom. That is what we mean by frontloading a defence, and it is why we leave no stone unturned before a charging decision is made. We do not wait for a charge to arrive before building the answer to it.
Most people’s first formal contact is an invitation to a voluntary interview under caution. How that invitation is answered shapes everything that follows, and we would rather have that conversation too early than too late.
We offer confidential consultations, in person at our London offices or remotely by secure call. Initial enquiries are handled discreetly and quickly.
If you are affected by an investigation under the new Act, you do not have to navigate it alone. Speak to us today.
A substantial block, brought in by the first commencement regulations, SI 2026/689, alongside provisions that commenced automatically two months after Royal Assent. They include vehicle seizure without a prior warning, protest offences covering identity concealment, pyrotechnics, memorials and protest at a public office holder’s home, new offences of trespass with intent and arranging begging for gain, the code of practice for extracting online information, and wider access to driver licensing data.
No. Respect Orders were not commenced by the first commencement regulations and remain subject to further commencement, regulations and guidance, despite frequent reporting to the contrary.
Not under this Act as things stand. The power to enter and search premises without a warrant where property has been electronically tracked there, which amends the Theft Act 1968, was not included in the first commencement regulations, despite being widely reported as in force. Entry to a home and its garden still rests on existing powers, principally a warrant or section 17 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. If entry is attempted on the strength of the new power, ask which provision is relied on and record the answer.
Not in itself. It becomes an offence under sections 157 to 159 where the covering conceals a person’s identity and is worn inside an area a senior police officer has designated for that purpose, for the limited period of that designation. Outside a valid designation, in place or in time, the same face coverings are lawful. Whether the designation was properly made and communicated is therefore central to any charge.
Written submissions to the police or Crown Prosecution Service before a charging decision is taken, addressing whether the evidence meets the realistic prospect of conviction test and whether prosecution is in the public interest. Made early, they are the most effective route to no further action.
Take advice first, always, and particularly if your immigration status, professional registration, or employment depends on disclosure. Section 188 of the Act deals specifically with cautions given to people with limited leave to enter or remain. A caution is a recorded admission, and its consequences can be far wider and far longer-lasting than the incident that produced it.
Take advice at the earliest opportunity, before you take any other step and before you speak to investigators. The strongest position in a criminal case is almost always the one established earliest, at the pre-charge stage, where the evidence and the procedure can be tested before a charging decision is made. You can contact our team directly for a confidential discussion.
Lex Vindico Group is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We represent individuals nationally across England and Wales in criminal, regulatory, and parallel-proceedings defence at every stage, and most decisively, at the pre-charge stage.
This article is written by Akram Mula, LLM, Solicitor Advocate and CPS-approved Prosecutor, founder of Lex Vindico Group. It is general legal information about recently commenced provisions of a new criminal justice statute, not legal advice on any specific case. Statutory references in this article are flagged for editorial verification before publication. For advice on your individual circumstances, contact our team directly.
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