Surely if the *only* reason for the 90 day period is to crack a hard drive (whether possible or not), then simply serving a 'Government Access to Keys' request (under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) would be sufficient. Failure to provide said key carries up to a 6 month sentence if it can be proved that the arrested should reasonable know the key. (I can't remember where the burden of proof ended up in the RIPA.)
Obviously provision of said correct key removes this need to hold a suspect.
IANAL though...
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Surely if the *only* reason for the 90 day period is to crack a hard drive (whether possible or not), then simply serving a 'Government Access to Keys' request (under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) would be sufficient. Failure to provide said key carries up to a 6 month sentence if it can be proved that the arrested should reasonable know the key. (I can't remember where the burden of proof ended up in the RIPA.) Obviously provision of said correct key removes this need to hold a suspect. IANAL though...