MovieChat Forums > Scott & Bailey (2011) Discussion > The British version of the Miranda warni...

The British version of the Miranda warning

posted 12 years ago by gearhart
15 replies | jump to latest

"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

I can't make sense of that first sentence. What's the effect, if someone later remembers something they forgot to mention when they were first questioned? Is it inadmissible?

I've only watched the first two episodes -- haven't seen any court scenes -- so maybe this will make more sense later.

It just seems odd.

[–] sandy47 12 years ago

Seems fine to me.

The arrested person is being told that they can keep silent while being questioned if that's what they choose, but, if they do and something is presented in court as a defence which they didn't tell the police about when asked, that evidence might get tossed out of court, ie "harm their defence".

If a person, innocent or otherwise, was cooperating with the police and didn't mention something that was important enough to be what they "rely on" as their defence, it would seem unlikely they would have simply forgotten to mention it and rather more likely they kept that information under wraps for dubious reasons.

[–] kkuger 11 years ago

It normally wouldn't be thrown out, but the jury would be informed that you didn't give an alibi until say... four months after arrest, and in most of the U.K., since the early 1990's, juries are free to infer that you're lying. (Judges will sometimes explain that to the jury.) Until the early '90's, juries weren't supposed to take your 'silence' into account, and the old 'caution' was almost identical to the U.S. version.

[–] russwjohns 11 years ago

The prosecution should have the burden to prove up their case and shouldn't be able to rely on a presumption of guilt based on the lack of a defendant's cooperation and/or their invocation of silence.

[–] Altho73 11 years ago

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Seems fine to me.

The arrested person is being told that they can keep silent while being questioned if that's what they choose, but, if they do and something is presented in court as a defence which they didn't tell the police about when asked, that evidence might get tossed out of court, ie "harm their defence".
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It does NOT seem fine to me, it appears to be a method of giving the police a license to set up suspects for conviction particularly if the suspects are naïve or of low intelligence.

After all there have been goodness knows how many disgraceful and embarrassing instances of incompetent or corrupt police officers in Britain deliberately setting up people whom they knew were not guilty with many of them spending years in prison before their innocence was proven. It is also significant that in all these high profile cases not a single police officer has served time for these acts.

[–] pmiano100 11 years ago

Sadly, we're no better in the USA. Prosecutors and police are rarely punished for setting up innocent defendants. Over the years, political liberals in the United States have built up British police as some kind of ideal to be emulated in all things. They seem way overly impressed that British police normally don't carry firearms, although police officers in most other countries, including Canada and Australia, do.

Forgive me, but it's comforting to me as a retired American law enforcement officer to know that your law enforcement people are human and make mistakes too. I'm not criticizing the British law enforcement community. I'm criticizing the Anglophiles in the US who think they're so much better than us. No police force in the world is without error or corruption. But at least in the USA an the UK you have legal avenues of appeal. Terrible injustices occur sometimes, but I'd hate much more to be at the mercy of police in Russia, China, or anywhere in Latin America, Africa or Asia.

[–] Altho73 11 years ago

I'm sorry to tell you pmiano that the British police force are not any kind of ideal to be emulated in all things, their reputation has suffered a series of blows since the 1970's notably with their setting up and framing innocent people for murders and so on. Please not that some of these were not repulsive villains that were set up for crimes that they were not guilty of but had committed scores of others that could not be proved but wholly innocent members of the public.

Some of these were a real disgrace, one example being the Stefan Kiszko case where they had definite evidence that he could not have been the guilty party but they went ahead and set him up all the same. He was found guilty and spent sixteen years in prison for a sex crime that he had not committed, he must have gone thru absolute hell, (prison officials did not then have a directive to isolate sex criminals like they now do).

In democratic Britain this miscarriage was eventually discovered and corrected but unfortunately did not help him because a year after release he died due to his physical and mental health having been destroyed by his horrific ordeal. The scandal is that none of the police officers involved in his set up ever served any prison time.

As you say I hate to think how much worse that instances like this must be in places like Russia and China.

[–] vonhoffmangunther 8 years ago

You don't have legal avenues of appeal when the police, the judges, and prosecutors tried to cut off your legal avenues of appeals. We have more people in America's prisons and jails compare to the rest of the world, so it tells me that people are at the mercy of the American police especially with the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism; otherwise, we would not have the ACLU, the Innocence Project, and other organizations trying to fight for people's rights. You have many cops who think the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be thrown into the trash can because they believe it prevents them from doing their job. You also have these secret courts where law enforcement can get warrants for people suspect of terrorism with little or no evidence to justify it and there is no way you can cross-examine the cops since you don't know where these courts are located.

[–] bon22 10 years ago

Sounds to me like the British Caution is the opposite of Miranda. The British Caution basically says 'tell us your defense now or you can't use it in court'. Miranda says you can remain silent, but if you decide to speak, whatever you say can be used against you.
Sounds to me like the British Caution does not give the right to remain silent.

[–] bob-1135 10 years ago

If you think that's bad you ought to investigate what happens to motorists. If you are suspected of committing a motoring offence you can be questioned about it. If you refuse to answer any questions that in itself is an offence under S172 of the RTA. You are refused legal aid to hire legal representation. When someone took this to the European Court one of the judges in his written reply stated that it was outrageous that British Motorists were being treated worse than murderers or terrorists. This was brought in especially to increase the fines they can get from motorists.

[–] bon22 10 years ago

Interesting, Bob. I assume the European Court did not overturn it.
Regarding the UK's no Right to Remain Silent: If an accused person doesn't have the Right to Remain Silent, what is the point of having a Solicitor when the accused is questioned by Police in the beginning of the investigation?

[–] bob-1135 10 years ago

It's only motorists who do not have the right to remain silent. Anything else you can.

[–] Katherina_Minola 10 years ago

A person has the right to remain silent. And an alibi given for the first time in court would not be enough to convict someone, without other evidence.

[–] MarkAnthony1990 9 years ago

Sounds to me like the British Caution does not give the right to remain silent.

It does.

"You do not have to say anything."

However, if you choose to not co-operate with the police and then come forward with information in court, which was already asked of you by the police at the start but you decided to keep hidden then it may be brought under scrutiny and might backfire and sway a jury against them. Especially if they deliberately withheld that information for dubious reasons.

Babies kill TV shows!

[–] !!!deleted!!! (2212087) 9 years ago

It's actually not the British version, it's the English one. The wording is different in Scotland where they have a somewhat different legal system.

Don't know about Wales.

[–] tehck 8 years ago

What's even more interesting to my American sensibility is the way English defense lawyers are portrayed during a police interrogation. In most English procedurals I watch (Midsomer Murders, Lewis, DCI Banks, and others), the lawyer just sits there silently while the police grill his or her client. This isn't always the case (especially for rich suspects), but I see the dynamic in interview rooms portrayed this way all the time.

Conversely, the first thing American lawyers are almost always shown to do is tell their clients to refuse to answer any questions. If suspects do agree to an interview, the lawyer tends to screen every question and frequently instructs the client not to answer. In shows like NYPD Blue, the kiss of death for any guilty suspect (and some who aren't) is to allow police to question him or her without the aid of a lawyer. By the same token, the worst thing that can happen from the police perspective is for the suspect to "lawyer up," which invariably means they have no chance of eliciting any information at all, much less a confession.