The court considered how to deal with the admission of a statement where the defendant contested its admissibility. Here the defendant said he had not been cautioned before the interview.
Held: It was within the discretion of the judge to admit the interview ‘It is to be observed, as this court pointed out in Rex v Murray [1951] 1 KB 391, that while it is for the presiding judge to rule whether a statement is admissible, it is for the jury to determine the weight to be given to it if he admits it, and thus, when a statement has been admitted by the judge, he should direct the jury to apply to their consideration of it the principle as stated by Lord Sumner, and he should further tell them that if they are not satisfied that it was made voluntarily, they should give it no weight at all and disregard it.’
Byrne J said: ‘This court has observed that police officers nearly always deny that they have collaborated in the making of notes, and we cannot help wondering why they are the only class of society who do not collaborate in such a matter. It seems to us that nothing could be more natural or proper when two persons have been present at an interview with a third person than that they should afterwards make sure that they have a correct version of what was said. Collaboration would appear to be a better explanation of almost identical notes than the possession of a superhuman memory.’
Judges:
Lord Goddard CJ, Byrne and Parker JJ
Citations:
[1953] 1 QB 680, (1953) 17 Cr App R 51
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Ibrahim v The King PC 6-Mar-1914
(Hong Kong) The defendant was an Afghan subject with the British Army in Hong Kong. He was accused of murder. Having accepted the protection of the British Armed forces, he became subject to their laws. In custody, he was asked about the offence by . .
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Mushtaq HL 21-Apr-2005
The defendant was convicted of fraud charges. He sought to have excluded statements made in interview on the basis that they had been obtained by oppressive behaviour by the police. His wife was very seriously ill in hospital and he had made the . .
Cited – Bally Sheng Balson v The State PC 2-Feb-2005
PC (Dominica) The appellant had been convicted of the murder of his partner and appealed the conviction.
Held: The case did not fall within the case of Anderson, and counsel’s failure was not such as to . .
Cited – Regina v Skinner CACD 6-Dec-1993
Witnesses should not rehearse their evidence together before going into court. Farquharson LJ said: ‘It has certainly been permissible, since Lord Goddard’s time, for officers to confer together in the making up of their notebooks immediately after . .
Cited – Saunders and Tucker, Regina (on the Application of) v The Association of Chief Police Officers and others Admn 10-Oct-2008
The deceased had been shot by police during an armed siege. His family complained that the Independent Police Complaints Commission had declined to order the officers not to confer with each other before making statements.
Held: The authority . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice, Police
Updated: 17 May 2022; Ref: scu.224426