ABSTRACT
The prime responsibility for policing the rail network throughout this country falls on the British Transport Police Force. In this respect they are a nationwide police force, as their jurisdiction brings them into contact with all police areas. In recognition of this fact, inter alia, s 43(1) of the Police Reform Act 2002 makes provision for the Home Secretary to make regulations enabling the chief constable of the British Transport Police Force to institute a railway safety accreditation scheme. Sub-section (2) makes provision that:
A railway safety accreditation scheme is a scheme for the exercise in, on or in the vicinity2 of policed premises in England and Wales, by persons accredited by the chief constable of the British Transport Police Force under the scheme, of the powers conferred on those persons by their accreditation under that scheme.
