How does it happen?
How and why miscarriages of justice occur can be difficult to explain to the lay person. The root cause of the majority of cases is due to poor investigation in the initial stages of the enquiry. To explain this it is necessary to understand the role of investigating police officers and their own perceptions of right and wrong, truth and justice.
Initially most people join the police service through a desire to serve the public, by making a contribution to society by helping to maintain law and order and protect the vulnerable from the criminal element. They join as honest men and women. It would be true to say that the majority of police officers spend the best part of 30 years of their lives believing this and that they are doing whatever is necessary, to achieve these objectives.
By doing what they believe is necessary, however, does not mean they are filling a role in accordance with the expectations of the public. It does not mean they are adhering to the rules of evidence or procedure. The general public goes about their business unaware that the police officers they have so much faith in, regularly and routinely abuse their powers. The public perception is that the police get it right most of the time and that any failure is merely a blip, a tragic mistake that does not happen often. The truth is that police officers often get it wrong. Why do they so often get it wrong, and why do police officers adopt the attitude that whatever they do is in the best interests of society?
The artificial world you become part of when you join the police service becomes a way of life. You are surrounded by either the good or the bad, without realising it you become prejudiced. The good you will perceive to be your colleagues, the victims of crime or older members of society. The bad will be the younger element which you will further put into categories by either race, creed or by where they live. These perceptions are reinforced by the people you meet everyday.
You become part of a state controlled framework which endorses your actions as a police officer whether those actions are within or outside the rules, providing the end result is perceived to justify the means. Winning is a result, losing is to fail, and a police officer is trained to win, whether that be an argument with a motorist or a court case. Not all police officers are bad, they are not, that goes without saying, but the problem arises in that some believe that in order to achieve their objectives they often have to bend the law to get a result. Obviously the officers who adopt this approach do so from a very early stage and as their career progresses they tend to deal with cases of a more serious nature. The corruption becomes more serious and the consequences for the victims of that corruption ever more devastating.
Truth is NOT an essential part of an investigation. All the investigating officer is interested in is getting a conviction. His skill is measured by his superiors on the basis of results. In any investigation the police have the upper hand from the outset. They have access to all of the initial evidence either from witnesses or documents. They have access to vast resources, such as expert witnesses and manpower. The defence on the other hand is constrained by receiving the evidence second hand from the police and only in documentary form. They have no access prior to trial of the police witnesses. What a witness says in a statement, is all the defence gets and from that, they have to try and establish the truth. Statements taken from witnesses will only contain those points relevant to the police case. The defence is also heavily constrained by the cost and resources they have available.
The police service is well aware of these constraints placed on the defence and exploits that knowledge to the full. It is very easy for the investigating officer to take a suspect and a set of circumstances and to fit those circumstances around that suspect. It is much more difficult to be faced with a crime and find the person who definitely did it, without there being any doubt. This is at the heart of all miscarriages of justice and police corruption.
