0:00 so you've been a bit naughty gotten yourself arrested and now you're sat in a five-star custody cell waiting to get interviewed how are you going to get out of this well luckily for you I used to be the police officer that was going to question you now before we get into it I'm not here to tell anyone to break the law but I used to see people day in day out accept Community resolutions and out of court disposals that they didn't need to and have no idea what their rights were everyone deserves to know how to navigate the system and to protect themselves especially in high pressure situations so let's kick things off with giving you an overview of the process your arrest will either have been planned or spontaneous but either way the process is still relatively the same you would have been told by the arresting officer what you've been arrested for the circumstances surrounding that arrest the necessity for the arrest and you
0:46 should have been cautioned so for example let's say Mrs Biggins down the road accused you of stealing her Mobility Scooter last night she shown police footage of you last night seen in her front garden on her ring doorbell so the police visit your address later that day they knock on your front door you answer and they say to you you're under arrest on suspicion of theft this is because it's been alleged that last night you entered the garden of Mrs bgins and stole her Mobility Scooter you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later r on and cour anything you do say may be given in evidence the necessity of this arrest is for a prompt investigation and to prevent the loss of evidence you can see that they've covered the offense the necessity the circumstances and the caution then you usually usually get placed in cuffs and
1:31 transports to custody now not every police station has a custody but the bigger ones usually do now normally you can only stay in custody for a maximum of 24 hours your clock begins as soon as you arrive this can be extended in very unique circumstances but it has to get the approval of Senior Management so for the majority of cases please have to work quickly now once you arrive you'll usually sit in what's called a holding cell it's basically a large room that detainees go and sit in with the arresting officer usually whilst they wait for the custody Sergeant to see you you may also be in there with other detainees if it's deemed safe enough if not you might sit in the car outside of custody or stand outside the door either way it's not a short process and you're usually waiting there for at least half an hour my longest wait was 6 hours but don't worry because the police officer that sat with you has a whole list of
2:17 health and safety questions to entertain you with this is because whilst you're in custody you are the responsibility of the police death or Serious injury in custody is heavily scrutinized in investigators and it falls on the custody sergeants and the custody the inspector to manage this risk you should answer their health and safety questions but other than that it's best just to keep quiet remember the caution the key part here is anything you do say maybe used it in evidence being arrested is stressful even if you're feeling confident you may say the wrong thing and incriminate Yourself by accident a good police officer will always be keeping an a out and will make notes of anything you say a bad police officer may ask you questions about the offense outside of the interview room this is not okay and is actually class as an out of pace interview which undermines the whole investigation very valuable
3:03 information for your solicitor now once they're ready you'll be called to the Sergeant's desk in custody they then proceed to ask the arresting officer why the arrest was made the circumstances around it and the key part is the necessity is then their choice whether or not they'll authorize your detention one whiff of an arrest that is not necessary or unlawful and they will kick you out onto the street a free person they'll also ask you if you want a solicitor my advice is always say yes it might delay you for a couple hours but it's always worth it now you can provide your own but I can tell you in many cases those that can afford top solicitors will actually usually go for the duty ones on their own solicitors advice why because top firms rarely employ solicitors that are in and out of custody day-to-day so the duty free option knows the process inside out and
3:50 is probably more Adept at it than they are don't worry if you're planning on battling this in core your own solicitors will have plenty of opportunity to do this later on if the custody Sergeant satisfied with your rest then they'll then authorize your attention and you'll be escorted to your cell unless in very extreme circumstances you'll usually be in a Cell on your own but if you're deemed a risk to yourself you'll have an officer watching you either at the door or on CCTV which is monitoring your cell 24/7 you have your own toilet and you can even order food and hot drinks just think more pot noodle rather than Lobster if your arrest has been planned it's likely that the o or the officer in charge of the investigation has already planned out your interview then it's just a case of wasting for your solicitor to arrive however if it's an unplanned arrest spontaneous you might have to wait for a bit longer this is
4:36 because as I'm sure you're aware the police are resource and time strapped so an unplanned detainee is often bounced around from Department to Department each one finding a unique set of circumstances as to why it's not their responsibility to take you on an interview if you want a bit of an indication as to what's going on you can always ask you may get fobbed off but if you're polite and calm that goes a long way over the custody Skippers and you will usually be treated accordingly when your solicitor does finally arrive they'll first go into what is called disclosure with the officer in charge and they'll have a bit of a chat about the reasons why you're there and the evidence the police have now the police don't actually have to tell your solicitor anything at this point however more often than not when I was interviewing I'd have an outcome in mind already for example if it was a minor firsttime offense and I had a ton of
5:21 evidence I'd usually tell the solicitor absolutely everything I'd also tell them that I was considering an out of court disposal should the suspect admit to the offense an out for court disposal usually means that you won't be taken to the court if you accept this as a lesser punishment and it can be something as minor as a community resolution which generally involves some sort of restorative action like writing a written apology for example it doesn't stay on your criminal record and you don't end up in call when you have a solicitor they can consider this weigh up the evidence and advise you accordingly regardless on whether you value their advice or not the police are much more likely to speak to a solicitor and tell them the full picture prior to interview rather rather than yourselves so you end up going into the interview with a better idea of what's going on after disclosure is finished you then have the opportunity to have a
6:07 consultation with your solicitor and this is in private in your own room they may tell you to go no comment they may tell you to tell the truth or they may urge you to accept an outof Court disposal it's important that you take as long as you need and ask as many questions as possible after all it's free advice every interview is audio recorded and usually consists of yourself your solicitor the officer in charge of the investig ation and another police officer for good measure the interviewing officer will go over the reasons why you're there confirm a few personal details and remind you that you're under caution and your rights and entitlements then the general questions begin now let me tell you my general strategy for interviews now I ended up on an investigations team which means that during some shifts I would do up to five interviews on a busy day now I won't lie to you I was good at interviews I trained most of the people
6:54 on my team and I had quite a good success rate and I'd always start each interview basically acting like the Suspects best friend just talking about random stuff asking if they had enough to drink General Life questions stuff like that basically any opportunity to get that conversation going and get them talking it made a no common interview less likely and also gave them a sense of false accuracy and you keep things light in general to start with asking about the day itself the people involved what they were doing if you get too specific too quickly the suspect may end up closing up the same goes for approaching sensitive topics from the offset and as the suspect hopefully spoke you note down any interesting points and most importantly any way in which the story conflicted with the evidence that you already had cashing the suspect in as many lies as possible
7:39 was key to breaking them and you'd want to Stack as many of them up as possible and once they were done talking if they chose to do so i' then tell them all the ways that I knew that laid lied to me all at once and keep the pressure high i' then ask them for the truth and ask them how it would look in core if they continue to lie to me on tap and i' tell them that the time in interview was running out and a lot of the time they' get flustered and they'd break and that's when I dive in with the specific crucial questions now that was the perfect scenario from my point of view and it probably only happen around 10% of the time it required the suspect being willing to speak in the first place and also a certain amount of evidence what happened more often than not is that the suspect would op too no comment in interview in these scenarios I'd still ask all the questions that I had about the offense but I'd also try and get them talking in one of two ways firstly
8:26 i' try and talk about emotive topics things that would elicit and need jerk response it was genuinely surprising how often people continued to talk once they responded to one small thing if that failed I'd then start talking about the evidence and how if it went to call how would it look that the suspect failed to defend themselves in any way now I'd say around half the time i' get a complete no common interview the suspect wouldn't crack and honestly in most cases that was the best thing for them to do saying as little as possible and sticking to the truth wherever possible means that you do not incriminate yourself and secondly you don't necessarily already close yourself off to these outof Court disposals that may be off of LeRon even if the officer in charge does try and take the matter to court it still has to go through the CPS now the CPS or the crown prosecution service are basically
9:11 the police's own lawyers and they will look over the case and either agree or disagree to charge the suspect and they will only charge the suspect if there's a realistic Prospect of conviction should it end up in court but if you do end up getting charged and going to court having said very little in interview you will inevitably get the question why didn't you defend yourself when you had the option in the police station but this is a pretty easy one to get around because a lot of people are genuinely too flustered too confused and too overwhelmed to provide any sort of Defense in the moment so if there's one thing to take away from this is keep it simple and just don't lie now following the interview the officer will either discuss next options with you there and then or they'll going and take some time to think but it's usually going to go one of four ways firstly no further actions taken and you're free to go now
9:56 this may be because there's not enough evidence to even bother a ing the CPS all because it's not in the public interest to waste the resources and time trying to take you to call for a minor offense two you'll be released on bail now baale can be unconditional or have conditions such as do not contact Mrs bins generally the conditions are there to protect other people or to prevent you disappearing so you may also have to sign on every week or so at your local police station now your initial bail period is usually either 6 weeks if the police are all done with their inquiries and they're ready to send you to the CPS for a chargeing to decision all 3 months if they still have to make some routine inquiries now this 3-month period can be extended to up to 12 months however it's not easy to do so and you have to have a good reason and you'll be kept informed
10:42 but you must make sure that you return on the day they tell you to otherwise you'll be committing a serious offense now option number three is that you're given that outof Court disposal that I keep mentioning and this will be fully explained to you by officer at the time and it'll be up to you whether or not you accept it and the last option is that you remanded that means that you're kept in custody until the next available court date usually first thing in the morning this requires a fast-time decision from the CPS on whether or nots charge you and is not done likely it's usually reserved for the most serious offenses or for repeat serial offenders so that's the gist of surviving a police interview I hope that this video taught you a lot because honestly anybody can be arrested all it takes is an allegation so stay safe and stay informed now if you have any questions on this or any other topics that you
11:28 want me to cover let me know in the comments below and as always thanks for watching guys [Music]
