Report and Recommendations - Scottish Government

eason of repetition, accusation and aggression and the answers given as aresult are prejudicial to the accused’s defence 16 .6.2.20 In parallel with the requirement to charge or liberate at the expiry of thedetention period, questioning should cease before that point, if it becomesclear from the suspect’s account of events that he/she is not to be charged withthe crime. As detailed in the previous section on Custody, where thereasonable suspicion is dispelled, the suspect should be released.Admissibility6.2.21 At common law, the test for the admissibility of answers by suspects to policequestioning came to be relatively well defined under the general heading of“fairness”. The history of this has already been explored in detail, but itremains important to understand where the law has reached and how, if at all,it dovetails with the more general right to a fair trial under Article 6 of theConvention.6.2.22 The police may put a wide range of questions to the suspect. Some may beopen questions seeking comment, others may be leading questions of the typeasked of a hostile witness during cross-examination at trial. Police officers areentitled to adopt a robust approach to the questioning of a suspect, but,especially with relatively minor crimes or child or vulnerable suspects, anoverly robust approach risks rendering any answers given inadmissible.Answers to questioning which amounts to “interrogation”, in the Scottish16 e.g. PF (Aberdeen) v Forrester [2011] HCJAC 71179