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Law Notes Criminal Procedure and Evidence Notes

Gathering Evidence Notes

Updated Gathering Evidence Notes

Criminal Procedure and Evidence Notes

Criminal Procedure and Evidence

Approximately 325 pages

A collection of the best Criminal Procedure and Evidence notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through dozens of LLB samples from outstanding students with the highest results in England and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor". In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of Criminal Procedure and Evidence notes available in the UK this year. This collect...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Criminal Procedure and Evidence Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Supervision 1 – Gathering Evidence

PACE 1984 and codes of practice

  • PACE empowers the Home Secretary to issue Codes of Practice covering certain aspects of police powers and procedure.

  • S.78 details sanctions if Act or Codes contravened.

  • Two ways to commence a prosecution:

    • Arrest suspect without warrant and then have him charged.

    • Prosecutor may lay charge and summons is issued (Magistrates Court Act 1980, s.1).

  • Spencer argues that legislation passed recently concerning powers to gather evidence have reduced integrity of PACE.

Arrest without warrant and charge

  • S.24 provides that police officer may arrest any person whom he has reasonable grounds to suspect of having committed, committing or being about to commit an offence.

  • Arrest must be necessary in accordance with criteria in s.24(5) PACE.

  • Arrestee must be told the reason for the arrest.

  • If police wrongly arrest, damages can be awarded for false imprisonment (Richardson).

  • Citizens can only arrest for indictable offences (s.24A), but do they know the difference?

  • Prior to asking questions, officer should caution the suspect – official caution under s.34 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (pa. 10.1 Code C).

Procedure at the police station

  • At station, custody officer has duty to ascertain the possessions of the detainee.

  • Custody officer then considers if there is enough evidence to charge detainee.

    • If not enough evidence to find a charge, officer may sanction detention without charge.

    • Maximum period of detention without charge is 36 hours, but magistrates’ order can increase this to 96 hours (s.42/44).

  • Code C controls conduct of police questioning.

  • Once detainee charged he may not be asked any further questions (Code C 16.5)

  • S.58(1) provides that a person shall be entitled to legal representation free of charge as soon as practicable.

    • Delay may be authorised (at least superintendent) under s.58(8) if:

      • Interference with or harm to evidence connected with the indictable offence; or

      • The alerting of other persons suspected of having committed an indictable offence; or

      • Hindrance to the recovery of the proceeds of an indictable offence.

    • Officer cannot dissuade legal advice being taken (Code C, Pa6.4).

      • Acceptable to tell him how long lawyer will take to arrive (6ZA).

    • Following Salduz and Cadder (Scottish case), solicitor must be provided before or at any point during questioning.

      • Failure to supply legal advice and consequently relying on statement in trial will be breach of Article 6.

    • To deny legal advice, you have to have specific concern about the solicitor (Samuel).

    • In Alladice, conviction stood as provision of solicitor would not have changed confession.

    • Leverick argues that this right is justified by protecting from the moral harm involved in wrongful conviction.

  • S.56 gives right to have someone informed of the arrest.

  • At end of interview, suspect should sign record confirming its accuracy.

Searches

  • S.1-3 provides police with general power to detain member of public without arrest to search him if he has reasonable grounds to suspect that he will find stolen or prohibited articles.

  • S.8 provides that a magistrate may issue a warrant authorising police officer to enter and search premises.

    • An officer who arrests a suspect otherwise than at the police station may search him if he has reasonable grounds to suspect that he has anything which might either be used for purposes of an escape or might be evidence of an offence.

  • S.17 of PACE provides that a police officer may enter and search premises in order to execute a warrant for arrest or to make an arrest without warrant for an indictable offence.

    • Cannot be used to find evidence.

  • Evidence discovered as a result of unlawful searches may be admissible at an accused’s trial, irrespective of whether he or some third party was the victim of the illegality.

Evidence excluded as a matter of public policy

  • General rule in English law is that if evidence is relevant, it is admissible in court (Lord Goddard in Kuruma).

  • S.1(1) Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 prohibits unlawful interception of any communication.

    • Warrant can be obtained from Home Secretary (s.1(5)).

    • Technically, the Act forbids disclosure of the source of the evidence, but in practice this renders the evidence inadmissible (s.17).

    • Will not apply to private citizens if outside of s.17(3).

      • But they will still be committing an offence under s.1.

  • In E, held that evidence was admissible because recording device was not interfering with a transmission,...

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