Report and Recommendations - Scottish Government

Committee’s report when read as a whole. Unless the integrity of theCommittee members were to be impugned, it must be accepted that thepurpose of detention, as the members conceived it, was that stated by them tobe justified. That purpose was to further investigations and not primarily as aninstrument to prise admissions from those to be charged in any event.2.0.20 Secondly, the Act specifically provided that the permission to question did notaffect the law on admissibility of evidence 31 . Thus, answers to questionscould still be regarded as inadmissible even if the questioning had been part ofa valid six hour detention process. One particular aspect of this was, as thelegal annotators 32 of the Act declared, that detention was not, in terms of thestructure of the Act, to be regarded as a means of delaying arrest and charge.If there were sufficient evidence to arrest and charge, it was the intention ofthe Committee 33 , albeit not later expressly stated in the legislation, that thedetention should end.2.0.21 Thirdly, in the vast majority of cases, the police did not in reality exercise anydiscretion in deciding whether to allow a suspect a consultation with a solicitor.At least in cases where a suspect was detained at or about the time of theoffence, in very few interviews of an adult suspect in detention was a solicitorever permitted to be present. That is not to say that the police would not haveallowed such presence, were the solicitor to have appeared in time at thepolice office. However, because of the prevalence of crime occurring at nightand the restriction imposed by the limited six hour period, detention interviews31 s 2(5) proviso; this is still the law, see 1995 Act s14 (7)32 Scottish Current Law Statutes33 para 7.03(e)34