Police Head Thinks Suspects Must Make Sacrifice

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30389, 13 March 1964, Page 14

Police Head Thinks Suspects Must Make Sacrifice

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 12.

The Commissioner of Police (Mr C. L. Spencer) believes that when the police get a suspect to the stage of a confession that suspect must “sacrifice something for the preservation of human rights as a whole.”

Mr Spencer, who has supported Mr Justice Henry’s criticism of the legal system of protection for accused persons, was questioned on his views.

He was asked whether he agreed that the essence of British law was that an accused person did not have to prove his innoc.ence—the prosecution had to establish his guilt. Mr Spencer said he did agree. He did not agree that if the police were given wider powers 'to question suspects there would be a tendency to rely more on confessions for convictions and less on evidence from other sources. Mr Spencer said: “In my experience you get the evidence from other sources, or quite a bit of it, before the confession, and it props the confession. Then, after a confession is made, each detail of it is checked and in checking other evidence results. I do not think it would have the effect you mentioned.” “Shut Up Like Clam” Mr Spencer was then referred to a question he himself had posed: “When a person has learned enough from a person he has questioned to lead him to believe that his first suspicions were justified, why should he be required—by the rules—at a most important stage of the investigation to encourage the suspect to shut up like a clam?” The reporter asked him: “If this were not the case, might it not lead to the situation where the police could question suspects for unduly long periods?” Mr Spencer: I do not think

it would make any difference. “Suspects are questioned for long periods with meal breaks or other things. And if he has reached the stage where he decides he will confess, I cannot see any reason why the confession cannot be given by him without him having to be warned first that he has no need to give it,” he said. “He knows from the beginning of the questioning why it is being done and the objective is merely to discover the truth of the matter.” A confession was not taken on its face value, Mr Spencer said. The details of the confession had to be inquired into and checked because on occasions there were persons who made false confessions. Asked what safeguard there was against unduly exhaustive police interrogation, Mr Spencer said the safeguards were the provisions of the Evidence Act, defending counsel and the courts.. Presence of Counsel

Would the presence of counsel during police questioning eliminate the posbility of any intimidation of that suspect by the police? “His presence would eliminate any intimidation,” replied Mr Spencer “but in my experience the presence of counsel has a stifling effect on the answer to the question put to him by an investigator.” Mr Spencer was asked what protection, if any, the Evidence Act gave a suspect in respect to eliminating the possibility of intimidation. He referred to section 20 of the act, which reads: — “Confession after promise, threat or other inducement — a confession tendered in evidence in any criminal pro-

ceeding shall not be rejected, on the ground that a promise or threat or any other inducement (not being the exercise of violence or force or other form of compulsion) has been held out to or exercised upon the person confessing, if the judge or other presiding officer is satisfied that the means by which the confession was obtained were not in fact likely to cause an untrue admission of guilt to be made.”

Asked whether it was not difficult for the courts to ensure that the police had not acted outside the scope of their authority if it was only the suspect’s word against that of the police, Mr Spencer said some allowance had to be given for honesty and trust.

“The police are concerned with the human rights of all law-abiding persons, and when we get a suspect to

the stage of confession I feel that he must sacrifice something for the preservation of human rights as a whole. “And then, of course, you have to think of the victim too.”

Asked whether he believed in the ditcum that it was preferable that 100 guilty persons go free than one innocent person be convicted, Mr Spencer said he did. Referred to his statement. “The guilty ought not to escape by reason of rules which are no longer necessary to protect the innocent,” Mr Spencer was asked why such rules were no longer necessary.

“In the very early days, well back into the last century,” he replied, “the police, through lack of organisation and training and their attitude toward their work, made ■it necessary then. “But not today—not in New Zealand, anyhow,” he said.