0:00 there are a great number of reasons why you might not want to talk to the police at all even if you're completely in a sense you did nothing wrong you think there's no chance of being involved in anything at all there are still very good reasons why you may not want to say anything at all and I'm going to explain some of those in this video but also because I'm a lawyer and I'm a barrister I'm also going to explain to you why it might be a good idea to tell the police certain things in certain situations and in true Advocate fashion you should hopefully be convinced by both of those because I always say to people when you're watching a trial particularly a jury trial as a member of the jury perhaps or even from the public Gallery when you listen to the prosecution case
0:45 and the way that the prosecution present the evidence conducts their Witnesses and so on you should very often be convinced that the prosecution have their case nailed and the defendant is guilty however I also say when you you then hear the defense present their side of the arguments they cross-examine the prosecution witnesses they present and conduct their own Witnesses and then they give their own speech to you as the defense advocate you should be equally convinced that the defendant is not guilty and then you're left with the situation well what do I do because you're convinced by the prosecutor first of all and then you're convinced by the defense Barrister so I'm not really going to help you in deciding this all
1:30 I'm going to do is give you reasons for and reasons against saying anything at all to the police let's go but before we get started if I can just ask you one quick favor I'd be looking at my statistics just recently and around 60 percent of you are not subscribed to this channel that watch this channel on a regular basis I would ask you very kindly to do that now because it does help my channel grow and spread it to a wider audience so I can help more people to understand law so let's get started let's start with one of the overarching reasons why you may not want to speak to the police at all this is a fundamental concept and a principle which has been discussed worldwide in fact and it's something that you really need to take into account when you're having any
2:15 conversation at all let alone with the police so you have to think about what the police are trained to do the police are trained to investigate crimes or suspected offenses and they are trained and it is their task to gather evidence if they are speaking to you about it that's exactly what they're doing one or both of those they're either investigating you for that offense or they are investigating the offense and by speaking to you the police at least think there's a possibility of getting some evidence from you even if you were an innocent bystander even if they're going door to door asking questions one way or another the police are looking to get evidence of a suspected offense that
3:01 they are investigating why is that a problem well it may be a problem for you in different situations and I'll explain why you see the police investigating an offense no precisely What offense they are investigating whereas you may not they know precisely what elements of that offense or at least they should know exactly what elements of that offense that they are investigating and what evidence they need to back those up they also know why they're speaking to you and where the location is what it is they're searching for and what information they're trying to glean from you and so on and the only reason they can be doing any of this is to try to support one of these limbs of the offense that they must prove now take the offense of theft for example
3:47 theft has five elements to it it's the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the permanent intention of depriving that person of it now you may be involved in any one of these elements of the offense let's say hypothetically you borrowed something from a friend with full permission full knowledge and you thought nothing wrong in that whatsoever so you've taken this item and you have it within your possession and you to your mind you think you're borrowing it however what happens where you've fallen out with that friend and they've made a report to the police that you've stolen it clearly there is a dispute in fact here because in your mind and in your knowledge you've borrowed this item but
4:34 then you've since fallen out with the friend they've reported it as stolen well as I said there are a number of different elements of the offense of theft at play here the one that your friend is going to struggle to prove is the dishonest intention part with the intention to permanently deprive the person of it however at least one of those elements is already going to be proven if you have that item in your possession and you admit that to the police that's the appropriation part you will have appropriated that item in one sense or another because you have it in your house or wherever you've got it stored so at least one of those elements of that offense has been made out you have appropriated that property now whether or not there is an intention to
5:19 permanently deprive that item may come into play depending on how long you've got it because if the police want to prove that you you intended to permanently deprive them of it and let's say you've had it for six months because you fell out six months ago and you haven't rekindled the relationship with your friends since then but you still have it even in your mind you might still intend to give it back to your friend whenever you make up with that friend however if it's still in your garage or your bedroom or your front room your back room your garden or shed wherever it might be if you still have that item and it's been a while then the police might try to underpin this offense the permanent intention part of that in offense because you've still got the thing now they've got two elements
6:04 of this offense made out you've appropriated it one way or another and they will try to argue or potentially try to argue that you permanently intend to deprive them of it we beyond any reasonable doubt because you've still got it some months later now all of this of course may just be a perfect misunderstanding because you've fallen out with your friend remember and actually you buy or the thing and you don't intend to permanently deprive them of it it's not theft in your mind and to a perfectly reasonable jury you could explain this away perfectly innocently however when this questioning process begins and the police are just talking to you about this whether it's on your doorstep or whether they've done it properly and they've cautioned you and taken you to the police station and they are questioning you there in the
6:50 presence of a lawyer which you're entitled to but that's a whole other story if they are questioning you about this and you are giving up this information you may start to feel that you are going down in a spiral and you are giving the police information that they can then sort of use against you to make you feel guilty about this offense if you start to feel guilty about this offense then the police might press you for other details the falling out and the police might put it to you that you've decided to keep this thing because you've fallen out with your friend if you say what I often refer to as the wrong thing which I say the wrong thing because it may not be your real intention it may not be what you really think it may only be what you think In
7:37 the Heat of that moment because you've been questioned by the police you have sort of given away a couple of the elements of the offense here which even if you don't know what those elements are it will certainly feel to you like you know that you've given something away you might start to feel guilty and the way that you come across in that interview and certain things that you say in that interview may make it sound that you are guiltier than you had once thought so all of this that goes on and the police know which buttons to press and they know how to question you but they are trained remember at questioning and interviewing people and they think they've got a couple of the elements of this offense under their belt already they might start to press you for more and more detail now you can see from that why it could
8:22 be very easy to say the wrong things such as well he doesn't want it anymore or she doesn't want it anymore or they don't deserve it back anymore or they did XYZ so I deserve to keep it or something along those lines if you say anything like those things even though you'd never probably thought them before and you probably wouldn't really think about them if you were in an ordinary situation sitting in your living room and not being questioned by the police and somebody said to you what's that thing in the corner and you said well that's just a friends we've fallen out I'm gonna give it back to him but we haven't seen each other for months whereas if you say the wrong thing in the police interview such as they don't
9:09 deserve it back that could allow the police to argue and charge you perhaps with the offensive theft on the basis that you've now said they don't deserve it back which would underpin this element of the offense that you intend to keep it now this works backwards because if you've appropriated property that belongs to another and they've now established that you intend to keep it then they can fairly easily argue that at that point it was dishonest now remember for these offenses they don't necessarily have to all occur at the same time and in a particular order for example if you've appropriated something with the knowledge and permission of the original owner who in your mind still owns it and you intend to give it back so you don't intend to
9:55 permanently deprive them of it but you say to the police that you've fallen out he did X Y or Z and therefore doesn't deserve it back and the police say well now you've intended to keep it now working backwards the dishonest intention to permanently deprive the person of it could then be worked backwards to argue that you dishonestly appropriated it in the first place now any one of these things can arise from saying essentially the wrong thing which may be something that you genuinely mean at that moment in time but you possibly never thought about it beforehand so you can now very easily see why and how you can say the wrong thing and ultimately you might look back on that interview and think I wish I
10:42 never said anything because they could never prove that I intended to keep it because after all if you do go to a jury trial you are charged and you're brought to court and you're brought to the Crown Court which is quite likely for an offensive theft like this you could always just leave it until you give evidence in court that could be I'm not suggesting it should be but that could be the first time that you ever say anything about this accusation and you say to the jury during your own live evidence of course you'll be cross-examined afterwards and the strength of your evidence will be tested by the prosecutor in cross-examination however if you feel that you will come across more believable and more credible in the witness box in court to the jury then you might think that's the best way of doing it rather than let the police
11:28 use what you may now feel like would have been a twisted interview evidence Gathering exercise by the police so on one hand I might well have convinced you that it's better not to say anything to the police at all now there is a caveat that comes with this which is it may harm your defense if you do not mention one question something that you later rely on in court and anything you do say may be given in evidence the last bit of that phrase the police caution of course which differs slightly depending on where you are the last bit of that phrase is obviously a very good reason for not saying anything to the police because anything you do say may be given in evidence so if you say those things it can be used in evidence so let's say potentially you got something wrong or you made something up or you just said something that you didn't really mean but you said it
12:13 anyway it's almost impossible to take that back because the police can and will either read a transcript or play a video of your interview and the jury will hear everything that you've said so if what you now say in court doesn't Accord with what you said in interview then suddenly you're inconsistent meaning you're not credible meaning the jury will most likely convict you however winding back to the first part of that caution it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court using the same example in the same scenario you've borrowed something from a friend that you intended to give back but then you were questioned by the police and they're asking you why you've still got it it's been some months and so on and so forth this time in an effort to convince you that it could be a good idea to talk to the police about
13:00 this honestly is because if you do not mention these things when questioned by the police it may harm your defense events later and I'll tell you why let's take a look at this same scenario again there is a simple explanation you borrowed this thing from your friend some months ago you've fallen out and you've got text messages that confirm that you've fallen out you've perhaps spoken to someone else about giving this thing back or maybe even trying to give it back through a third party and perhaps even you've tried to call this friend yourself to arrange dropping this thing back old to no avail so the thing still sits in your garage or your shed or wherever you still have this thing you don't want this thing anymore you want to give it back to your friend but perhaps even
13:46 your friends said they don't want it back anymore or something like that any of these things are a simple explanation which would very likely equip you of a charge of theft if you've got some evidence that backs it up and it's all a very believable story however link this in with the caution it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court so now take the scenario that you've got all those answers which are perfectly credible which you didn't say but now you're standing in front of a jury and the prosecutor says the following you have just said to this jury that you borrowed this item from your friend and you intended to give it back that's right isn't it you will say yes that's
14:34 right that's what I said the prosecutor might then say to you at no point did you mention that you wanted to give this back before this trial that's also true isn't it you'll have to say yes because this would have been the first time that you have mentioned this fact let's say that you also say in your evidence at trial that you asked a third friend to give it back to this friend but that person wasn't willing to come to court and you're trying to get the jury to believe that you have this conversation with the third friend to return this item to the original friend but what the prosecutor can then do in cross-examination is trap you into the evidence that you've just given in court as an inconsistency with what you've said or not said before
15:22 so let's say that you did make a defense statement but you didn't include those facts because you didn't want to tell the police that you didn't want to tell the police anything let's say your defense case statement which is mandatory in the Crown Court is a bear denial which isn't a defense by the way a bear denial of the offense is not a defense in and of itself but nonetheless you've made this defense statement you've given your response in a defense case statement as a bare denial to this charge the prosecutor will then ask you that question you've just given your evidence today that you tried to give it back through a third party you'll say yes the prosecutor might then say just confirm to this court that is your evidence to this court today that you tried to give this back through a third party you will say yes you might even
16:09 get frustrated because it might be two or three times the prosecutor asks you this same question the prosecutor will then say you were arrested with this offense and asked to explain it by the police you will say yes the prosecutor will then say that you were interviewed about this offense you will say yes the prosecutor will say you had every opportunity to mention these facts to the police at that moment that's right isn't it you'll say yes the prosecutor will say that you made this defense case statement setting out a denial of this offense you will agree the prosecutor will say that you had every opportunity to include those relevant facts within this defense case statement and you will agree the prosecutor May then remind you of how much time has passed between that date and the trial which is going to be
16:55 a reasonably long time and then confirm with you again that you haven't mentioned these facts to anyone ever between those two dates and you have to agree the prosecutor May then put to you that the only reason you're mentioning these facts now is because you've made it up of course you will disagree with that statement however on the backdrop of all of the opportunity that you've had to mention these facts beforehand you may now start to feel how a jury is going to doubt your word because so long as the prosecutor has put to you that you've made it up and given you the opportunity to deny and explain whether or not you've made it up the prosecutor can suggest to the jury
17:40 that you have just made this up in the witness box today and that at no point have you mentioned this before therefore how can that possibly be a credible account of what really happened now the same is true not just for theft but for any other kind of offense as well taking self-defense as a classic example if somebody walks up to you and punches you and you punch them back in self-defense that is a perfect self-defense scenario you are acting lawfully because it's reasonable for us because you used not more than the force they've used against you and it doesn't have to be the same by the way just has to be reasonable in the circumstances that you genuinely believe them to be what that means is if you genuinely believe someone is going to use a stick
18:26 against you and actually it's an umbrella then you use something against them so long as you genuinely believe that that was the circumstances and the jury accepts that then you can use reasonable Force based on those circumstances however to summarize that same situation again you're met with the same Choice when speaking to the police you can either speak to the police about your genuine belief that someone was coming to hit you with a big long stick or you can feel rather embarrassed about it because it turned out to be an umbrella and prefer instead to say nothing but the trouble is if you wait until you get to court and then you say that you are acting in self-defense because you believed they were carrying a long stick and were going to hit you with it whereas in fact it was an umbrella you can see how you might struggle to get a
19:12 jury to believe you that you haven't just made it up in court whereas all along you were just acting in self-defense so there are two sides to this coin and hopefully you are convinced by both elements one where you can say the wrong thing either by being trapped by the line of questioning or by getting frustrated or by simply not knowing one of the elements of the offense that you are tripping yourself up on because some offenses are strict liability and you can be strictly liable to that offense on the other hand you could put the police to proof because the prosecutor have to prove the case against you but if you've admitted it you just give the game away on the other hand if they do end up proving that you had this substance
19:58 which is a strict liability offense and later on you say that there was some legitimate reason for it you'd found it and you're bringing it back to the police station you can now see how the jury might not believe that whereas if that genuinely was the case in the first place you could have told the police you found it on the floor you picked it up and you took it straight to the nearest police station there are various ways of validating that and particularly if you did end up getting to the police station with it but it's obviously a very different scenario than being found with it somewhere else at a club or wherever and not saying anything at all until you get to trial and then saying that you just found it in the toilets you can probably understand how the jury might struggle to believe that so if you found this fascinating welcome to the world of law welcome to the world of Court where hopefully you can see that there are
20:45 always two signs if not three or four or fifty different sides to a case you can see things from different perspectives I remember my very first legal experience I was probably 16 years old I was told to read a stack of 50 witness statements 5-0 who the then lawyer said to me you've always been told that there are two sides to a story tell me how many signs you think there are after reading those witness statements and I can tell you there weren't just 50 there were more than 50 because each person had a different story about other people who also saw it from a different perspective so hopefully you can see just how interesting that might be just how fraught it might be to answer the right question in the wrong way or answer the wrong question at all and why it's so important that you seek formal legal
21:31 advice so my closing statement to you is if you are ever questioned with something like this always consider getting legal advice even if you think you've done absolutely nothing wrong now the only time this is absolutely not going to come into play is let's say the police knocked my door now and said that I'm responsible for something that happened happened in Manchester an hour ago and I can prove that I was here because I was in conference not much more than an hour ago and there was no way I was in Manchester then obviously I can prove with GPS tracking and location and all of these sorts of things where I am and therefore there was absolutely no way that I was in Manchester but short of that you can see how that can go wrong I hope you enjoyed that I hope you
22:16 found it interesting please do remember to like the video and subscribe and as always thank you for watching
