Police body in warning over law to tackle Euro 2020 ticket touts

New laws aimed at tackling ticket touts during next year's European Championships in Glasgow could create accountability issues, the head of a police body has said.

Callum Steele, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), told MSPs there are a number of issues with the Uefa European Championship (Scotland) Bill, including the handing over of “pseudo police powers to non-police officers''.

The Bill, which will cover the Games at Hampden next summer, is designed to ban ticket touting, as well as constrict advertisers near fan zones in the city to just those who sponsor the event.

In order to enforce the law, the Bill sets out the appointment of “enforcement officers'' who are intended to be members of Glasgow City Council's trading standards team.

Mr Steele told the Culture Committee on Thursday that powers provided to the enforcement officers in the current form of the Bill create “accountability issues''.

He said: “In general, the SPF thinks it's very important to maintain the distinction between police officers and others who may be afforded some form of police-like powers.

“Not least because of the unique role police officers hold in society and the standards to which they are held to account.

“Beyond that, we do have some concerns that there are fairly extensive powers afforded to non-warranted individuals who demand then the support and assistance of police officers.

“If this legislation is passed, enforcement officers could be carrying out the same actions as a police officer, while being held to a different set of accountability standards.''

Under the legislation, searches of individuals, the use of force and the search of homes, needs to be done in the presence of a police officer.

Green MSP Ross Greer questioned whether the enforcement officers would be needed to execute these powers at all, given police officers already have the power to search individuals, use force and enter homes for the purpose of a search if they have grounds to do so.

In a written submission to the committee, Mr Steele pointed to a section of the legislation which said enforcement officers “may be assisted by any other person'' to uphold the legislation.

The general secretary wrote: “If it is envisaged that 17(4) could see persons other than police officers being relied upon to assist, this creates a potential for a free for all with random citizens (subjected to potentially zero validation) able to exercise powers of entry and search, and seizure and destruction.

“The inherent risks in this approach ought to be self-evident.'