CustodyNote for Police Station Representatives

By CustodyNote Editorial·15 February 2026·Updated 11 May 2026

Defence-side editorial team — solicitors and accredited police station reps in England and Wales. Reviewed against PACE Code C and current LAA Standard Crime Contract guidance.

Whether you are a freelance rep covering multiple firms or an accredited representative building your practice, CustodyNote is designed for the way you work.

The home screen — five workflow tiles built for accredited police station reps, including a dedicated Tel Advice tile.

Quick Capture — designed for the reality of rep work: get a note open while still on the DSCC call.

Built for reps, not just solicitors

Many tools assume one firm, one template, and a desk job. Police station representatives often work the opposite way: several firms on your books, different custody suites each night, and a need to turn around a clear note before you drive to the next job. CustodyNote is built around that pattern — structured fields so you do not skip disclosure or welfare checks, quick entry on a laptop in the suite, and output you can send straight to whoever instructed you.

You might be accredited under the same scheme as in-house solicitors but without their IT department, their precedents folder, or their single matter-management login. The software has to be something you can rely on in the car park at 11 p.m., with a battery that is half gone and a sergeant waiting for your client. That is the bar CustodyNote is aimed at: fewer moving parts, consistent structure, and a PDF that looks the same whether tonight's instruction came from a city firm or a high-street practice.

Section 1 — Case Reference & Arrival. Every rep attendance opens with the same structured fields.

Your workflow, simplified

A typical evening might run like this. The DSCC or a firm rings with a name, station, and allegation summary. You open a new record in CustodyNote, drop in those details, and add travel or waiting time as you go. At the station you work through the sections as events happen: booking in, disclosure, consultations, interview or no-comment, and any bail or charging decision. When you leave, you are not facing a blank Word document at midnight — the spine of the note is already there. Export a PDF, attach it to the email the firm expects, or save it for their portal. CustodyNote is meant to sit in that gap between “I was there” and “the file is complete.”

Settings — encrypted local storage; cloud backup is opt-in. Custody suites without Wi-Fi are no problem.

Offline by default

Custody areas and interview rooms are notorious for dead air. CustodyNote saves your work locally first. You keep typing through consultations and interviews without waiting for a signal. When you are back on Wi-Fi or tethering, encrypted sync can bring the record in line with your backup setup. That matters when you are stacking several attendances in one shift and cannot afford to lose a half-finished note because the network dropped.

Reps sometimes work from tethered phones or hotel Wi-Fi between jobs; neither is guaranteed stable inside a concrete building. Local-first storage means the worst-case scenario is “I will sync later,” not “the browser timed out and I am retyping three pages from memory.”

Firms You Work For — keep separate firm details for every instructor; pick one from a list on each new note.

One tool, multiple firms

Freelance reps often need the same professional standard for Firm A on Tuesday and Firm B on Wednesday, without maintaining a separate stack of templates. You can organise notes by instructing firm, keep identifiers clear for each file, and export discrete PDFs per attendance so billing and filing stay tidy. The structure stays PACE-aware; only the instructing party and reference lines change.

Section 5 — Disclosure. PACE 11.1A disclosure has its own structured section.

PACE-aligned structure

Custody officers and investigating officers have duties under PACE and codes of practice; your note is the contemporaneous record that shows what was said, what was disclosed, and what happened to the client in custody. CustodyNote's sections prompt you for the kinds of detail firms and auditors expect — not so you tick boxes for their sake, but so you do not realise three days later that you never recorded when legal advice was offered or whether an appropriate adult was present. For a fuller picture of what good notes cover, see how to write attendance notes and our police station attendance notes guide.

Section 9 — Time Recording & Fees. Now buttons capture every billable minute as it happens.

Billing support

When you bill through more than one firm, or when the firm bills Legal Aid on your attendances, messy notes cost money. Time recording fields, travel, and disbursement-style detail help you align what you did with what the LAA and the firm need on the bill. CustodyNote is oriented toward that kind of output without turning every attendance into a spreadsheet exercise. For context on Legal Aid and notes, read attendance notes for legal aid billing.

Section 6 — Consultation. Tickbox templates ensure every PACE-required check is covered.

Templates and quality

If you are comparing your current Word template to a dedicated tool, our attendance note template (UK) page sets out what a solid template includes — much of that is baked into CustodyNote's flow. To avoid the errors that get files sent back, see common mistakes in attendance notes.

Open Matters — your practice view from day one, populated as you finalise each attendance.

Getting started

CustodyNote runs on Windows 10 or later (64-bit). You can start with a free 30-day trial — full functionality, no credit card required to try the core workflow. If you already know you want ongoing access, pricing is straightforward monthly billing after the trial.

For video walkthroughs and topic-by-topic demos as we publish them, see tutorials & demos.