Tips for Smart Cops Series
Taking witness or suspect statements

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* Any statement recorded from a foreign national should be taken in the interviewee's mother tongue or with the assistance of an interpreter.

* Provided that no unreasonable delay or hindrance is reasonably likely to be caused to the processes of police investigation, a person in custody should be allowed to speak on the telephone to his friends, or to consult and communicate with a solicitor or barrister privately.

* Young persons under the age of 16, whether suspected of crime, should only be interviewed, so far as practicable, in the presence of a parent or guardian, or, in their absence, a person who is not a police officer and is of the same sex as the child.

* If a suspect refuses to sign a caution statement, the senior officer present shall, in the presence of the suspect, make a relevant record on that statement.

* Statements should be recorded in a witness' own words with a logical order. Officers should draw a line through any space left blank in order to prevent allegations that additions were made after it was completed.

* At the end of a witness statement, the ending declaration should be added immediately after the final paragraph of the statement, and the empty space in between should be crossed out.

* Having completed an ending declaration, the officer should invite the witness to sign immediately after the declaration. The officer, any interpreter and witness should also sign.

* An ending declaration should include the total number of pages and the language used in recording the statement. It is advisable to add the date and time when the statement is finished after the declaration.

* Whenever a police officer issues a copy of statement to a witness, he shall complete a Pol. 157, 'Acknowledgment of Receipt of a Copy of a Statement' form, and retain it in the relevant case file as proof of issue.

* In respect of a witness statement recorded in detail on a Pol. 154, the officer needs only record, in his notebook, when, where and from whom the statement was taken by him.