Tape recording of police interviews

We will all now be familiar with the existing arrangements for the interviewing of detained persons under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The pattern of telephone calls from the custody officer followed by attendance at the police station and interview, often in the early hours of the morning, are all too well known.
The ensuring interview should then be carried out under the provisions of the codes of practice contained within the red pamphlet produced by the Home Office. The actual interview is covered by para 12 and consists, usually, of one officer asking questions whilst another writes down those questions and then attempts to write down the suspect's replies. This can be harder than it sounds since so often the suspect will not understand the familiar injunction to 'follow the pen' and will babble out a reply, not all of which will go down on paper nor, perhaps, will the full sense of the reply always be recorded.
For the police too there are difficulties in that the interview is quite artificial and officers are prevented by the mechanics of the exercise from quickly following up promising lines of questioning.
It was in an effort to answer criticisms of the existing system that the Home Office instituted field trials in five police force areas in 1984. These trials ended in the spring of 1986 resulting in a draft code of practice in February 1988. The following outline is based upon the re-drafted codes which, it is expected, will form the basis for publication.
Equipment
Police stations require rooms specially adapted for tape recorded interviews to prevent, as far as is economically possible, the intrusion of external noise sources. It will take some time to provide each main police station with adequate facilities but it is expected that the tape recording of interviews will become standard police practice by 1991.
THe recording equipment itself consists of a twin-deck tape recorder which has no play back, fast forward or erase facilities. A sensitive microphone is placed near those participating in the interview. The recorder has an on/off button, a level indicator and a time counter.
There are two tracks on each cassette, one of which records speech and the other a timing signal. This ensures that there can be no stopping of the machinery in order to conduct unrecorded questioning without it being immediately apparent since the time track would not give a continuous record of elapsed time. Depending on the type of play back equipment used, it is possible to play back both tracks together, the speech track alone or the time track alone.
An alarm system operates if the tape breaks or the machine malfunctions and in certain other circumstances in order to alert the operator.
Tapes
Normal C90 cassettes are used but only one side of each will be taped. Security is a significant hallmark of the system. Blank tapes are delivered, sealed in cellophane wrapping, in packs of two. The master tape and working tape are separately indentified and one is inserted into each of the decks in the machine. Both record simultaneously.
The interviewing officer will obtain his tapes from secure storage and they will be booked out to him prior to the interview. The custody officer will ensure that the cellophane wrapping is intact.
Cope tapes will be available from the police or CPS (depending on the police force area) although practices on payment may well vary. It is likely that a £5 fee will be charged, allowable on legal aid.
Operation
The following observations are based upon the practice which will exist in the Lancashire/Cumbria CPS area but it is anticipated the practice elsewhere will be very similar.
The interviewing officer will insert the cassettes into the machine and, having switched the system on, will record the time and place of interview and details of the persons present. Suspect and solicitor will then be asked to identify themselves to establish an identification of the voice should anyone speak during the interview. The cause will then be administered and interviewing will commence.
It is extremely important for solicitors to note that new techniques will be required in tape recorded interviews which have not, hitherto, presented problems. For example, in a handwritten record of interview a solicitor might well interject to ensure that a full and accurate reply is recorded. This is now unlikely to be a problem save for mumbles or incoherent responses which might subsequently be misinterpreted.
Of more difficulty, however, will be responses known as 'non-verbal responses'. Interviewing officers will be trained to described such responses so that they are recorded on tape. Solicitors should be alert to any attempts (inadvertent or otherwise) by officers to read into the record prejudicial and/or misleading observations. If necessary, the solicitor will need to make a verbal response himself since it must be borne in mind that the tapes might ultimately be heard by magistrates or a jury. It would also be as well for solicitors to advice clients carefully not only about the way they answer questions but about other responses of a non-verbal type which might be misinterpreted. Examples of such responses would include shrugs of the shoulders, nodding, rolling eyes upwards, sighing, banging the table etc all of which are capable of misinterpretation.
The writer ventures the query as to how soon it will be before video recording of interviews is introduced because of potential difficulties over non-verbal responses.
Preparation for trial
It is not anticipated that a full transcript of the interview will be prepared. The norm will be for the officer to prepare a prbecis.
The officer, albeit trained to include all matters relevant to the prosecution or defence, will prepare his summary on what he regards as relevant. It is anticipated that different rules will apply in different police force areas so that the completeness of the prbecis might differ widely from area to area. Consequently, solicitors should be alert to the fact that the prbecis might omit matters of some relevance to the defence. The only answer, of cou rse, is to take instructions but the ultimate will be to obtain a copy of the tape if necessary. The field trials have shown that this is required in remarkably few cases.
It should be noted, also, that there will be the facility to edit tapes prior either to disclosure or to their use in evidence. Predisclosure editing is likely to be confined to the deletion of matters likely to injure state security. Certainly in Lancashire, predisclosure editing will be a most unusual step to be taken only after consultation with the CPS and only at police headquarters. The role of the CPS will be crucial.
Pre-trial editing, however, is likely to take place after consultation with the defence to exclude prejudicial references to previous convictions and matters of that type. Obviously, it will be incumbent upon defence solicitors to ensure that they have listened to the tape well in advance of the matter being listed for trial to ensure that the issues are confined to areas where the two sides cannot agree.
How will it work?
Thankfully the field trials have proved reassuring to date. Requests for copy tapes have been remarkably few as have the need for transcripts. The vast majority of interviews proceeded smoothly and quickly and practitioners will no doubt welcome that latter aspect particularly have been called from a warm bed at 3.30 in the morning.
Security for the tapes seems to be of a very high order indeed with the master tape being secured in its container by a sticky label and retained under lock and key as original evidence.
The new arrangements would appear to be a significant advance in the interviewing of suspects at police stations which will be to the benefit of all concerned. In operation, as with all things, vigilance in the interests of one's client will be required probably even more than under the old system because of the speed at which things will happen.