In purely legal terms, the DHB owns significant areas of land on the sea front of Dover together with the ferry and cruise terminals.

However, when the custody suite there closed in November 2011, PoDP officers would have instead been required to take arrestees to Canterbury, Folkestone or Margate police stations, but the force received a legal opinion stating that this would be unlawful as this would put them outside the one mile limit of their jurisdiction.

Serious offences committed within the port, such as acts of terrorism, murder, manslaughter, rape, facilitation of illegal immigration or any incident involving the death (suspicious or not) of a person are investigated by Kent Police.

However, the PoDP will, when resources and legal jurisdiction permit, respond to calls for assistance from Kent Police in the Dover area.

These statistics result in a very high level of daily interaction with the public which makes PoDP unusual compared with other port police forces.

During 2009 officers of PoDP made over 700 arrests for a wide variety of offences including drink-driving, theft, fraud and public order.

[9] Officers wear identical uniforms to their colleagues in other forces throughout the country, including the familiar helmet of British police constables.

They also wear peaked flat caps with a Sillitoe tartan band, stab-resistant vests, carry asp extendable batons, rigid handcuffs and PAVA incapacitant spray.

The boat also provides assistance to small craft and has been utilised in the recovery of property and bodies from the sea, the foreshore, and the inaccessible areas below the white cliffs that stretch east and west of the port.