UK UK - Corrie McKeague, 23, Bury St Edmunds, 24 September 2016 #17

[Shiressleuth]

I don't believe it is illegal, as long as you don't have your keys in the ignition with the intention of starting the engine.

If you are sleeping in your own vehicle then you cannot be charged, that is what a traffic officer told me a few years ago.

There appears to be a number of grey areas on the matter but unless the police believe that you may drive off whilst drunk there is little they can do.

He clearly didn't want to go back to his car. Possibly because he was due to meet someone.

I agree. If he wanted to sit/kip in his 2 seater he would not have turned into Brentgovel and chose Hughes in the first place. Its irrelevant whether it is illegal or not anyway but I believe not.

 

[Blueazman74]

SULSAR - yes

Find Corrie - no

Hi, what about the Mayor of Bury St Edmunds FB page?


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[mrseeker]

In the USA he would have probably been arrested for sleeping on the sidewalk. I am amazed that no cop noticed him in two hours at Hughes. Is that normal there? I know we have laws against public drinking, intoxication...and in the UK I think you don't intervene unless there is trouble. So do cops just ignore drunks who are not causing trouble?

 

[penguinface]

The police here are a far less visible presence and less pro-active than in the USA. Unless they'd been told by the CCTV control room that Corrie was in the doorway, I doubt they'd have known or randomly walked/driven past.

It always surprises me when in the States just how often you see police cars just roaming about so I imagine that same surprise would work conversely the other way. We just don't really have "bobbies on the beat" any more. In a town the size of Bury, there's a fair chance that if you went out from evening 'til the end of the night, you probably wouldn't see any police presence.

 

[Shiressleuth]

In the USA he would have probably been arrested for sleeping on the sidewalk. I am amazed that no cop noticed him in two hours at Hughes. Is that normal there? I know we have laws against public drinking, intoxication...and in the UK I think you don't intervene unless there is trouble. So do cops just ignore drunks who are not causing trouble?

Generally yes. You would have to be drunk and disorderly to be arrested. E.g. drunk and urinating in a public place. My son once spent a night in cells for precisely that but was let out at 6.a.m. with no charge the next day after several calls from me saying is he o.k. ? He has asthma and does he have his inhaler and can I see him etc etc. He and his sister and cousins were all out together. They came back and told us what had happened as we lived very close to the cop shop. He had been very cheeky in the cells. He told me he called them to the cell door and said "I've read this book can I have another"
So what with him and me they didn't keep him in there long.

 

[TheTruthWillOut]

I cannot find anything that says drinking alcohol in your vehicle whilst not being above the drink drive limit is illegal. Could you quote the relevant section please?

My understanding is that if caught in the act of drinking in a car alone with the keys you would be given ~20 minutes before a roadside test is conducted. When a car is stopped and Police request a breath test they always ask if you have had a drink in the last 20 minutes from TV shows like Traffic Cops?

In this case they may have taken him to the Police station for a test. Saying that though with Corrie being RAF he might have been given the benefit of doubt if he explained he wasn't going to drive?

The only way to answer your question would be to breath test the person. You can't state one way or the other if he would be below the drink drive limit because how much and how long someone has been drinking would be unknown.

 

[suzyjackson]

In the USA he would have probably been arrested for sleeping on the sidewalk. I am amazed that no cop noticed him in two hours at Hughes. Is that normal there? I know we have laws against public drinking, intoxication...and in the UK I think you don't intervene unless there is trouble. So do cops just ignore drunks who are not causing trouble?

I wouldn't expect the police where I live to necessarily do anything about a harmless drunk and sadly homeless people do sleep in doorways every night of the year and are mostly left alone by the police. There are kind citizens in my local town that will try to help the homeless but tbh if they saw an obviously drunk reveller rather than a true homeless person I'm pretty sure they'd leave them alone.

In fact it's not unheard of for homeless people to die on the street at night if they have problems caused by drug and/or alcohol abuse. There's no way that C could have been mistaken for one of those though so I'm not totally surprised he was left alone to sleep, if that is actually what happened, I believe nothing we've been told now

 

[suzyjackson]

I don't believe it is illegal, as long as you don't have your keys in the ignition with the intention of starting the engine.

If you are sleeping in your own vehicle then you cannot be charged, that is what a traffic officer told me a few years ago.

There appears to be a number of grey areas on the matter but unless the police believe that you may drive off whilst drunk there is little they can do.

He clearly didn't want to go back to his car. Possibly because he was due to meet someone.

When this first came up many thread ago there were links to the law on this and the keys in the ignition is an urban myth, you can still be charged just for being in the car.

No idea if this is actually enforced but it could be, but as I said above I think it's irrelevant here, C wasn't spending the evening thinking about which laws he might be breaking IMO, he was a normal young lad having a few too many on a night out, it doesn't work to apply sober middle aged thinking (no offence to the younger posters)

 

[Ruthbullock]

I don't believe it is illegal, as long as you don't have your keys in the ignition with the intention of starting the engine.

If you are sleeping in your own vehicle then you cannot be charged, that is what a traffic officer told me a few years ago.

There appears to be a number of grey areas on the matter but unless the police believe that you may drive off whilst drunk there is little they can do.

He clearly didn't want to go back to his car. Possibly because he was due to meet someone.

And that last sentence is why it matters! For some reason he chose not to go back to his car and head in the other direction. The keys do have to be the ignition (not turned on) to be charged - had a friend whose moped broke down, his mate offered to fix it after the pub one night, so off they trotted and picked up his moped, they were pushing it along the road to his mates and he got arrested- there was a whole group of them and they were walking it along, it didn't matter one bit, in order to turn the handlebars he had stuck the key in the ignition as they pushed it - police watched him and charged him later for being intoxicated in charge of a vehicle (it was the technicality of keys in ignition that did it). He could have gone and slept it off for a little bit and whilst the police may have knocked on the car window, they wouldn't do anything else really.


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[Taskforce88]

And that last sentence is why it matters! For some reason he chose not to go back to his car and head in the other direction. The keys do have to be the ignition (not turned on) to be charged - had a friend whose moped broke down, his mate offered to fix it after the pub one night, so off they trotted and picked up his moped, they were pushing it along the road to his mates and he got arrested- there was a whole group of them and they were walking it along, it didn't matter one bit, in order to turn the handlebars he had stuck the key in the ignition as they pushed it - police watched him and charged him later for being intoxicated in charge of a vehicle (it was the technicality of keys in ignition that did it). He could have gone and slept it off for a little bit and whilst the police may have knocked on the car window, they wouldn't do anything else really.


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If I had a warm car nearby that's where I would choose to eat my takeaway, not out on the street, and he wouldn't be bothered what the police might do since he had already been drinking in his car earlier in the evening. Of course people act differently when drunk.

IMO he was on his phone planning a meet in a secluded area that's the reason he didn't go back to the vehicle. If that is the case can the police not trace people online/dating app etc?

 

[Shiressleuth]

So the police are looking at him walking back and getting into trouble or had an accident?

Could this then tie in with the suspicious car that three men tried to burn? Was he picked up on the way back? Kidnapped?

Interesting.

They were originally. I don't know their mindset now. They have had another force look at the case the latest update said, so looks like they are CTA IMO.

 

[Shiressleuth]

And that last sentence is why it matters! For some reason he chose not to go back to his car and head in the other direction. The keys do have to be the ignition (not turned on) to be charged - had a friend whose moped broke down, his mate offered to fix it after the pub one night, so off they trotted and picked up his moped, they were pushing it along the road to his mates and he got arrested- there was a whole group of them and they were walking it along, it didn't matter one bit, in order to turn the handlebars he had stuck the key in the ignition as they pushed it - police watched him and charged him later for being intoxicated in charge of a vehicle (it was the technicality of keys in ignition that did it). He could have gone and slept it off for a little bit and whilst the police may have knocked on the car window, they wouldn't do anything else really.


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Those cops really wanted that serious criminal under lock and key. Perhaps initially they thought it was stolen then realised they had a nickable offence. Harsh decision all the same.

 

[ChuckieD]

But he was drinking in his car when sober earlier in the night and on the phone to his brother. If he wasn't bothered about getting caught then when it was busier, would he be bothered taking a nap later in the early hours?

How do you know he was sober when he was sat in the car park talking to his brother?

 

[mrseeker]

Seems the family still thinks he travelled to BM with his phone, either voluntarily or involuntarily, since they are still searching the BM area. I have always thought they should search the path towards Honington concentrating on the eastern side of the search area. Problem with my theory he tried to walk home, is the phone. Why would he lose it this night of all nights? I think the landfill is the most likely place the more I think about it.

 

[Officer Dibble]

They were originally. I don't know their mindset now. They have had another force look at the case the latest update said, so looks like they are CTA IMO.

I can't keep up - I didn't realise another force had looked at the case. Thanks for that. Where can I look that up? Also wondering what CTA stands for?

 

[Taskforce88]

Seems the family still thinks he travelled to BM with his phone, either voluntarily or involuntarily, since they are still searching the BM area. I have always thought they should search the path towards Honington concentrating on the eastern side of the search area. Problem with my theory he tried to walk home, is the phone. Why would he lose it this night of all nights? I think the landfill is the most likely place the more I think about it.

It is looking that way

 

[Officer Dibble]

Based on the recent search details for Sunday, Mildenhall and BM are the locality. I am wondering what logic or evidence this is based upon. Just the phone movements indicate this location, no sightings AFAIK.

Maybe acting on people having phoned in information?

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Hi, what about the Mayor of Bury St Edmunds FB page?


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<modsnip>

I'm still confused about whether the horseshoe means just that little corner where Corrie turned right, or a wider "off camera" area which would include the other bin area nearer the carpark?

 

[Reallyodd]

Seems the family still thinks he travelled to BM with his phone, either voluntarily or involuntarily, since they are still searching the BM area. I have always thought they should search the path towards Honington concentrating on the eastern side of the search area. Problem with my theory he tried to walk home, is the phone. Why would he lose it this night of all nights? I think the landfill is the most likely place the more I think about it.

If he got a lift part way, he could have taken a different route towards Honington and accidentally left the phone in the vehicle which then traveled on to Barton Mills/Mildenhall.

 

[Shiressleuth]

I can't keep up - I didn't realise another force had looked at the case. Thanks for that. Where can I look that up? Also wondering what CTA stands for?

It is in the media thread at the beginning of this thread. SP update 10 Feb about 6 paras from end "review by other constabulaties". CTA means Cover Their ****.