Playing the ID blame game

This month’s report by the inspector of constabulary on the vetting and monitoring of police officers took me back obliquely to an incident at Brixton Prison in the late 1960s.

It was an identification parade for a couple of alleged bank robbers. Now, in those days, ID parades were something of a lottery when perfectly conducted. But at Brixton, although the police were nominally in charge, they were conducted by the prison staff. Suspects were allowed to go through the population selecting those who most resembled them, and witnesses could be subjected to harassment by the parade.

It all went well from my clients’ point of view until they were picked out by the last witness. When I phoned one of the men’s wives with the news, she wailed, ‘they couldn’t; we paid £x’. I forget exactly how much but you could have bought a small mews flat in W1 with it.

Everything worked out well, however. The last witness was a police officer and he wrote in his statement something like ‘although I am fairly certain X and Y were the men I cannot be absolutely sure’. Thereby gaining brownie points for his fairness. I would like to have known what really happened.

My clients were convinced that parades were rigged and I have no doubt sometimes they were. I went to one in the Midlands where, at the last minute, my client swapped ties with the man standing next to him. This man was picked out and as we went down the stairs I heard the witness say plaintively, ‘but you told me it was the one in the red tie’.

Even in serious cases, IDs could be disorganised. Another client was wanted for an identification parade for a murder and I agreed to take him to Wood Green police station. We arrived early to avoid any potential witness seeing us. I told the station officer who we were and we were shown into a small waiting room. Inside were an elderly (to me) couple and we all sat silently for 10 minutes or so until the man leaned over, tapped me on the knee and said, ‘we’re here for the identification parade for that murder. What are you here for?’ Parade over.

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor