The defendant sought leave to appeal after a ruling that her refusal to take legal advice during police interview had been informed and voluntary. The interviewing officer had adopted a policy of always giving disclosure where the suspect was legally represented, but of never doing so where they were not.
Held: The appeal was dismissed. However: ‘There may well be cases where fairness demands that a detainee is afforded pre-interview disclosure, so that he knows sufficiently the nature of the police enquiry and is placed in a position to know whether legal advice would assist or not. The inflexible practice adopted by . . and endorsed by the judge runs a serious risk of depriving a detainee of information he needs before deciding whether to waive or not. In the instant case that risk did not arise, but in other cases it may do. The approach adopted by the police needs to be flexible so that they can be sensitive to the different needs of different detainees. ‘
Judges:
Moses LJ, Cranston J, Inman QC J
Citations:
[2012] EWCA Crim 1380
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – McGowan (Procurator Fiscal) v B SC 23-Nov-2011
The appellant complained that after arrest, though he had been advised of his right to legal advice, and had declined the offer, it was still wrong to have his subsequent interview relied upon at his trial.
Held: It was not incompatible with . .
Cited – Jude v Her Majesty’s Advocate SC 23-Nov-2011
The Lord Advocate appealed against three decisions as to the use to be made of interviews where the detainees had not been given access to lawyers. In each case the prosecutor now appealed after their convictions had been overturned in the light of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Police
Updated: 03 November 2022; Ref: scu.460865