POLICE SYSTEM

Hokitika Guardian, 23 September 1937, Page 2

POLICE SYSTEM

OF TAKING STATEMENTS

IS IT A FAIR ONE?

SYDNEY, September 20

Is the present system of taking statements from persons charged with a serious offence fair either lo police or to accused? This week in Sydney, after a previous jury had disagreed, a woman w«s found not guilty of having murdered her husband.

The deliberations of the jury remain a secret of the jury-room, but one profoundly important fact emerged from their verdict.

Statements submitted by the police, in which the accused woman allegedly admitted her guilt, were disbelieved by the jurymen. These statements, according tu the police, were made voluntarily. The jury, in rejecting them, rejected the evidence of the police.

Magistrate Would Ensure Validity

Under the present system :>f taking such statements, the police cannot do anything to clear up what is obviously an undesirable state of affairs. If statements involving alleged confessions were made in the presence of someone dissociated from the Police Department, such as a magistrate called in for the purpose, there would be no doubt as to the circumstances in which the statement was made. It must be remembered that it is not the function of the police to fix the responsibility for a crime on the person charged with it. It is the police job to collect all the evidence relating to the case, whether it weighs in favoi r of the accused or against him, and to leave it to the Crown Prosecutor to prove nis guilt.

For this reason, extreme caution must be used in taking down alleged confessions to ensure that they are not influenced by threats or promises.

In England, so much importance is attached to this principle that the police are forbidden to cross-examine a. person making a voluntary statement, and he is repeatedly warned against incriminating himself.

No Questioning After Charge Laid

It is also laid down in English police procedure that when the police, after examining a suspect, decide to charge him with an offence, they must refrain from questioning him further. Australian police procedure, though based upon the English system, is not quite so. exacting. All the. difficulties involved in our present method of taking statements would be eliminated if the statement were made in the presence of a magistrate.

The magistrate could be changed from time to time to make ure that he ilid not become part of the police machine.

If this were done, it would be impossible for a person who has allegedly made a voluntary confession to recant it in Court on the plea that it had been extracted under duress.

And it would be impossible for a jury to have any doubts as to the means employed by the police in securing the statement.