Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000

This section states circumstances in which a person may be unable to properly perform the role of a support person for a relevant person.

However, this section does not limit the circumstances in which a person may be unable to properly perform the role of a support person.

The circumstances are as follows—

the person’s ability to perform the role is substantially impaired by the effect of something the person has ingested, for example, alcohol, a drug or a potentially harmful thing, to the extent that the person is unable to act in the best interests of the relevant person;

the person is a person with an impaired capacity and the person’s impairment prevents the person from acting in the best interests of the relevant person;

the person is, or appears to a police officer to be, unwilling to perform the role of a support person because of illness, injury, pain, tiredness or a similar cause;

the person has an affiliation, association or other relationship with a police officer questioning the relevant person;

the person has a relationship of authority with the relevant person that may prevent the person from acting in the best interests of the relevant person;Example for paragraph (e)—a teacher who recently excluded the relevant person from a school

the person is a victim of the offence for which the relevant person is being questioned or a friend of the victim;

the person witnessed the commission of the offence for which the relevant person is being questioned.

In this section—ingest includes—

administer; and

inhale; and

smoke.