Report and Recommendations - Scottish Government

arrest and liberty. There was nothing in between, whereby a suspect could bedetained on “suspicion” and questioned prior to charge 12 .2.0.5 The remarkable circumstances in Chalmers were that, once suspicion hadfallen upon the appellant, he had been “taken” to a police station andcautioned. He was not formally arrested. Within five minutes of the start ofquestioning, he had effectively broken down and had ultimately taken thepolice to where the deceased’s purse could be found. This incriminated him inthe deceased’s murder. The Lord Justice General (Cooper) regarded all of theevidence concerning the police’s dealings with the appellant to beinadmissible, as he had essentially been the suspect and thus, it was reasoned,in the same category as someone who had been arrested and ought therefore tohave been charged. He could not legitimately be questioned. The LordJustice General expressly stated that, whilst he had sympathy with the policein the difficult position in which they were often placed, it was not thefunction of the police to “direct their endeavours to obtaining a confessionfrom the suspect to be used as evidence against him at the trial”. Only“spontaneous” voluntary statements were admissible. Thus, at the initial stageof an investigation, the police were free to question anyone with a view toacquiring information which may lead to the detection of the criminal.However, when the stage of suspicion was reached (in the sense of the personbeing regarded as the likely perpetrator of the crime) further interrogation ofthat person became “very dangerous” and would essentially render anyresponses inadmissible. It was in this celebrated part of his Opinion that the12 see Swankie v Milne 1973 JC 1, Lord Cameron at 12326