Lack of answer cause for comment

Press, 20 March 1982, Page 5

Lack of answer cause for comment

PA Wellington People accused of crimes should be cautioned that any refusal to answer "reasonable” questions put to them by the police could be a matter of comment to a jury, the chief police legal adviser, Mr Neville Trendle, has said. He said this could be added to the standard caution police are legally bound to give a person they are arresting - that he or she is not obliged to say anything, but that anything said may be taken down and used in evidence. An innocent person had no reason for not answering a question, Mr Trendle said. He defined “reasonable"

questions as asking a person where he or she was at the time of a crime, or his or her response to an allegation made by a third party. ■ At present, the prosecution is barred from making any comment to a jury that an accused had failed to answer reasonable questions put by a policeman. Mr Trendle said police agreed with a reported suggestion in the “Dominion” by the Member of Parliament for Palmerston Nroth, Mr T. A. de Cleene. a lawyer, that refusal by an accused to answer questions should be a matter of comment to a jury. Some Commonwealth countries already had this provision, Mr Trendle said,