Is there an equal balance between the rights of suspects and the powers of the Police?

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Is there an equal balance between the rights of suspects and the powers of the Police?

By Chris Wills

The police need to have certain powers to enforce laws and to keep people safe from crime. Their powers allow them to talk to anyone and to ask them questions about who they are, where they're going and what they are doing. This helps them to see who was in a particular place at a particular time; this makes their job of enforcing law easier.

Before 1984 the rules about the powers of the police weren't very strict, what rules there were, were set in case law, by Judges. This meant there weren't many rules and they weren't obeyed.

During the late 70's a male prostitute called Maxwell Confait was found in a burning building, he had been strangled with a piece of electrical cord. Three youths were quickly arrested. They were aged 15, 14 and 18, but all had a mental age of eight. They confessed under police questioning and were convicted of arson, manslaughter and murder.

There were several features of the case that led many people to view the convictions as wrong. The