Lockpicking laws in Ireland

chem

Listen the Gardi are lazy. All they do is send a report to the DPP. The DPP are like robots. Two options, crime or not a crime. If its in black and white in the law that xy and z is a crime, you go to court and the judge tells you if you are a criminal or not.

Korgman

I don't understand, are the guards allowed to search you whenever they want, even without a legitimate reason? What about your home, on what circumstances will they see it necessary to search it?

SB2013

chem wrote: »

Listen the Gardi are lazy. All they do is send a report to the DPP.

As opposed to doing what exactly?

Korgman

There is an online lockpicking club called ''lockpicking 101''. Has anyone heard of it?

Pat Mustard

Korgman wrote: »

I don't understand, are the guards allowed to search you whenever they want, even without a legitimate reason? What about your home, on what circumstances will they see it necessary to search it?

Gardai are required to have 'reasonable suspicion', in order to allow them to search legally.

If the search is technically illegal, the evidence from the search must be excluded at trial. In my experience, a Garda statement will state a reason for the Garda's suspicion, in any case.

ResearchWill

Korgman wrote: »

I don't understand, are the guards allowed to search you whenever they want, even without a legitimate reason? What about your home, on what circumstances will they see it necessary to search it?

A search warrant is required to search a home. In relation to a search of the person they can do so under certain statutes, and after arrest. There is a common law right of search again in certain circumstances.

A good case on search powers of motor vehicles under misuse of drugs act 1977, http://judgmental.org.uk/judgments/IEHC/2009/[2009]_IEHC_368.html

Pat Mustard

I should have clarified that I meant an on-the-street search btw, not in the home etc.

Korgman

So if I join an online line lockpicking club, ship some picks to ireland and keep them in my home I technically won't be breaking a law?

Tar.Aldarion

They have no reason to suspect you of anything, you are fine. And can also open car clamps :pac:
The guy that runs the lock picking club I've gone to actually has to open locks for people a lot because they lock themselves out etc. Very handy. I saw a quote recently from a locksmith, 150e to do it. So definitely worth it to know how!

BogMonkey

Korgman wrote: »

Hi I have a question.
I have recently got interested in lockpicking as a hobby. I was on Amazon and it was willing to ship lockpicks around the UK. If i tried to ship some to Ireland would i land in any trouble?

No. Besides, theres an open borders agreement between the UK and Ireland, customs don't inspect mail traveling between the two countries. At least not like they would if the mail was coming from abroad.

Korgman wrote: »

I don't understand, are the guards allowed to search you whenever they want, even without a legitimate reason? What about your home, on what circumstances will they see it necessary to search it?

Gards need a warrant to legally enter your house, unless you invite them in that is. Unlike the US though, in Ireland they don't need your permission to search your vehicle, they can search it at any time if they feel you exhibited suspicious behaviour (which obviously depends entirely on what the gard chooses to interpret as suspicious behaviour). In America they need "probable cause", which I'm guessing requires an actual set of criteria, rather than just the police officers opinion.

As for searching you for walking down the road, I don't know what the law is concerning that. As an adult, I have never once been stopped and searched by the Gards, so I'm guessing that people who aren't actually planning on committing crimes (i.e. people casing out houses at 3 in the morning) with their lockpicks don't have to worry about that. As a hobbyist, your mainly only gonna be using them at home. On the other hand, it would be cool to be able to keep a set of picks in your wallet for situations where you actually need to pick a lock. What I had in mind was I occasionally forget my college locker key and if I can't find someone with a spare lab coat, I can't attend the lab. I solved that problem by stashing a spare a key behind a pipe in a utility closet.

Heres info on Irish laws: http://www.iccl.ie/welcome-to-the-iccl-know-your-rights-page.html Look at the Criminal Justice and Garda Powers one, it answers your question on page 2: When can a Garda search me? If a Garda has a reasonable suspicion that you have committed an offence, he or she has various powers that allow him or her to search you without your consent and before you have actually been arrested. I'm not sure if there is strict criteria on what constitutes suspicious behaviour or what. In court though, if its the Gardas word against yours (i.e. you were just walking down the road, but the Garda claim you were drunk and shouting at people), they're gonna believe the Garda so it won't matter if you were actually exhibiting suspicious behaviour or not.

hullaballoo

This thread has legs! :pac:

I've read through this thread because I was asked a question relating to the possession of lock picks and this was the first result on Google. The question was regarding possession of lock picks for the purposes of removing clamps.

Now, the removal of a clamp is not an offence listed under any part of s.15 of the TAFOA so s.15(1) would not be completed if you have lock picks and intend to use them solely for clamp removal. I accept the point that the offence created by s.15(1A) appears to make it an offence to possess anything that could or would be used to commit a listed offence. That would be a ridiculous position for the law to be in so you'd have to query whether that has any real effect. I certainly think anyone representing someone charged under s.15(1A) would be entitled to attack the offence that is purported to be created.

It seems to me that you are more likely to be charged under s.15(1) because the lack of clarity contained in s.15(1A) is going to make prosecution very difficult, if not impossible.

It's all a bit of a mess and certainly the overlay of ambiguity around clamping, in terms of clamping itself and the removal of clamps makes this an interesting discussion.

Pat Mustard

The offence under S.15(1) requires proof of intention to commit one of the offences listed from a-d. However, the offence under S.15(1A) requires no intention to be shown. It is a strict liability offence.

In the absence of the intention to commit one of the listed offences, it appears that the State would have no option except to charge under S.15(1A). Even if the requisite intention is there, it can be quite an obstacle for the State to establish it.

Although S.15(1A) is clumsily drafted, its meaning can be discerned as possession (without lawful authority or reasonable excuse) of one of the following:

• any article made for use in the course of the commission of an offence referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d) of s.15(1).
• any article made for use in connection with the commission of an offence referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d) of s.15(1).
• any article adapted for use in the course of the commission of an offence referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d) of s.15(1).
• any article adapted for use in connection with the commission of an offence referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d) of s.15(1).

I presume that the State would argue that lockpicks were made for use in the course of the commission of an offence.


I wonder how an argument would succeed to the effect that lockpicks are made to open doors, which is not an offence and that therefore, it cannot simply be asserted that they have been made for use in the course of the commission of one of the listed offences.

syklops

Considering the TOG lockpicking club has been engaged with Dublin City Council to remove love locks from the Ha'Penny bridge. The legality of owning or carrying picks now seems topical. Could someone be arrested while on their way to help out the DCC?

Pat Mustard

The penalty is a term not exceeding five years, which is enough to make it an arrestable offence. So yes, Gardai would have power of arrest for this offence. They could be arrested for suspicion of committing an offence under S.15(1A).

However, if the services of members of a lockpicking club has been retained by the local authority to remove locks from the Ha'penny Bridge, I would say that there is a strong argument for the defence of reasonable excuse.

conorh91

Other radio junkies like myself may be familiar with this very interesting RTÉ Raidio 1 documentary on the Dublin Lock-Picking Club TOG, a club which was mentioned by the user syklops

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2013/0827/647503-documentary-podcast-dublin-lock-picking-club-hackerspace/

TOG is a hackerspace group. That is, a group of like-minded people who gather together every week to share ideas, hold classes and make things.

Every second Tuesday they have a crafters group, who crochet, knit and talk about computer programming. (They also combine the two in a knitting machine that will be connected to the Internet.)

Every other Tuesday, the group meets to pick locks. They have a table full of, mostly, padlocks and they use their picking tools to try to open those padlocks.

Some of the padlocks are simple three pin ones, while others are the more challenging five-pin ones with extra 'security' pins.

Some of the locks have names and initials on them. These are locks that were put on the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin by couples eager to display their lasting love.

Every month, the council cuts them off to protect the bridge, so the Lock Pickers decided to "liberate" some to practise on.

The lock-pickers, like the crafters, also talk programming. There's a strong link between programming and lock-picking and, particularly, computer security and hacking and lock-picking.

The way hackers use the computer's own functionality to hack it, so lock-pickers use the lock's own structure to open it without a key.

Everyone is there for the one thing: the happy 'jolt', that 'moment of joy' when the lock springs open after minutes or hours of frustrated concentration.