Report and Recommendations - Scottish Government

5.1.15 Reasonable suspicion permits section 14 detention, and hence questioning, at astage before there is sufficient evidence to arrest and charge at common law or,consequently, to prosecute. In other jurisdictions, suspicion has beendescribed in the following way 23 :“Suspicion in its ordinary meaning is a state of conjecture or surmisewhere proof is lacking: ‘I suspect but I cannot prove.’ Suspicion arisesat or near the starting point in an investigation of which the obtainingof prima facie proof is at the end”.As already observed 24 reasonable suspicion exists when there is informationwhich would satisfy an objective observer that the suspect may havecommitted the offence. But it must also exist where proof exists. It isreasonable to suspect someone against whom the evidence is overwhelming.5.1.16 Before carrying out a section 14 detention, or an arrest in urgent circumstances,the investigating police officer requires to distinguish mere suspicion or belief,such as one based purely on the suspect’s criminal record, from a state ofsuspicion held on reasonable grounds. As the Lord Justice-Clerk (Thomson)said in Chalmers 25 :“just where that point in time is reached is in any particular caseextremely difficult to define – or even an experienced police official torealise its arrival”.23 Hussien v Chong Fook Kam [1970] AC 942, Lord Devlin at 94824 see above para 3.07 under reference to Fox v United Kingdom (supra)25 1954 JC 66 at 8283