Evidence • Pocket notebook rules

ELBOWS police meaning

Pocket notebook (PNB) entry rules — 'No ELBOWS'. A quick, source-backed reference for the UK policing mnemonic ELBOWS.

Short answer

Standard rules for keeping the police pocket notebook so entries are tamper-evident and admissible: mistakes are ruled through and initialled rather than erased or overwritten, no gaps are left for later insertion, and speech is recorded verbatim.

Legal anchor: Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.139 (memory refreshing from contemporaneous notes); underpins CPIA 1996 recording duties

ELBOWS
Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.139 (memory refreshing from contemporaneous notes); underpins CPIA 1996 recording duties
ENo Erasures
LNo Leaves torn out
BNo Blank spaces
ONo Overwriting
WNo Writing between lines
SStatements in direct speech (record words actually spoken, verbatim)

When officers use it

Standard rules for keeping the police pocket notebook so entries are tamper-evident and admissible: mistakes are ruled through and initialled rather than erased or overwritten, no gaps are left for later insertion, and speech is recorded verbatim.

Practical point: the mnemonic is a memory aid, not the test. Decisions still turn on the live facts and the underlying law (Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.139 (memory refreshing from contemporaneous notes); underpins CPIA 1996 recording duties) — record your rationale, not just the letters.

Variants and spellings

First five letters are prohibitions; S is the variable letter — most sources give 'Statements in direct speech'; a 'no Spare/blank pages' rendering circulates but was not verifiable in a fetched source.

Why Section includes this

Section is a fast UK police reference app for officers and student officers: offences, points to prove, PACE powers and the standard mnemonics in one offline place. Every entry in the app — including this one — was verified against the sources listed below.

What does ELBOWS stand for?

E = No Erasures, L = No Leaves torn out, B = No Blank spaces, O = No Overwriting, W = No Writing between lines, S = Statements in direct speech.

Is ELBOWS a law?

No — it is a memory aid used in UK police training. The underlying framework is Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.139 (memory refreshing from contemporaneous notes); underpins CPIA 1996 recording duties.

Are there variants of ELBOWS?

First five letters are prohibitions; S is the variable letter — most sources give 'Statements in direct speech'; a 'no Spare/blank pages' rendering circulates but was not verifiable in a fetched source.

Sources

GOWISELY — Stop and search — information the officer must give (PACE s2 / Code A) IDCOPPLAN — Arrest necessity criteria ('ID COP PLAN') — PACE s24 / Code G PLAN — Justifying use of force / interference with rights (Human Rights Act)

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