How many times have you watched a crime drama on the television which depicts a cocky criminal thinking that they are so clever in refusing to answer any questions put to them by the police? The only thing they are prepared to say is “no comment”, and this seems to be in the standard code of conduct that is utilised by the criminal underclass.
There is an understanding of the fact that it is up to the police to prove a person’s guilt whenever they have been charged with an offence. After all, we are all aware that one of the most fundamental principles of our legal system is that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Therefore, if the job of the police is inhibited by a defendant refusing to answer questions and provide any assistance in the enquiry, surely this would make it far harder to gather sufficient evidentiary support to forward to the Crown Prosecution Service and proceed with a case in the courts.
Whilst this was certainly the problem faced by the police in the past, mercifully, these cocky criminals will often not be aware that new laws are now in place to attempt to address this dilemma. Yes, everyone does have the right to remain silent during any interviews carried out by the police, but now adverse inferences can be drawn by doing so, if and when a case may be put to a jury at crown court. What’s more, it would be the responsibility of a judge to inform the jury of this vital new legal stance.
Basically, what this all means is that if a defendant has refused to help the police in their enquiries when it comes to light that they were holding back vital information that would have helped in the case, this can and will be held against them.
Many people will agree that something had to be done over defendants adamantly refusing to answer any questions during police interviews. Personally, most law abiding citizens would agree that if a person is genuinely innocent, they will want to do all that they can to assist the police and answer their questions truthfully. After all, surely this would help to arrive at the fact that they are innocent more quickly.
If and when a person is charged with a crime and taken to a police station to be questioned, they will have the right to legal representation and this will be provided free of charge if the defendant cannot afford it themselves. It will be the responsibility of the solicitor to advise their client of this new law when it comes to remaining silent and this should lead to more cooperation between the accused and police; however, this may not always be the case.
The new law whereby adverse inferences can be drawn by a defendant remaining silent through a police interview is actually a little more tentative that it was initially intended to be. When it first came into law, hopes were high that police interviews would turn out to be more successful than they had been in the past.
As this law is not producing the standard of results that were initially hoped for, many people now argue that things need to be taken even further. Some are even saying that the fundamental human right to remain silent should be withdrawn if and when a person is expected to assist the police with their enquiries – whereby any refusal to answer questions should automatically be viewed as an admission of guilt.
This may well be going too far, however. One thing is clear and that is something had to be done to address the unhelpful position that was assumed by so many criminals during police interviews. The law has been addressed once in this regard, but it seems highly likely that it will be looked at again in the near future.
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