Slightly OT?

[Ian G Batten]

On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, David Hansen wrote:
> Similarly innocent people have been advised to lie and say that they 
> did something they didn't do, because there is "infallible" 
> "scientific" evidence that they did it.

It is claimed that Brown was convicted on the basis of a confession
extracted by violence.  If so, this will not be the first time.  The
Home Office, of course, believes that the police are incapable of
committing crimes and that these lies about the police are travesties;
we should policemen to run investigations according to their high
standards of ethical behaviour.  

The Home Office has learnt nothing from the long line of people being
freed by the court of appeal.  Juries and most importantly the general
public may have trusted the police and the legal system in the 1970s,
but they certainly don't now --- were I to be serving on a jury, I would
not take seriously what I was told by a policeman without serious
evidence to support it, and were I a witness to a crime I would not make
a witness statement without my own legal representation.  The Home
Office's refusal to admit that there is the slightest thing wrong with
the system is a signficant contributor to that distrust.



ian