Where a suspect is found to be a juvenile or mentally disordered, PACE Code C 3.15 stipulates that a custody officer must, as soon as practicable[1] ask an appropriate adult to come to the station and see the suspect. Palmer identifies that due to,

         Dissuading suspects to ask for legal advice is a typical trait of Cop Culture. Code C 3.1 stipulates that a suspect should be informed of their right to legal advice, by a custody officer. Sanders et al outline that police officers often read, ‘rights quickly and incomprehensibly and/or incompletely’ leaving suspects uninformed of these rights. Validly Skinns asserts that police often tell suspects that requesting legal advice will prolong their detention in custody.  These tactics wrongfully prohibit suspects from enforcing the safeguards available under Code C 6.4. In addition, since 2008 all publically funded requests for legal advice were routed through the Defence Solicitor Call Centre (CDS) as outlined by Skinns, and it has been evidenced by Pascoe et al that in 2005, 22 percent of calls made by CDS to police stations were not taken by police officers. This resulted in suspects effectively being denied legal advice due to the stations no- cooperation with CDS.

          However the police still withhold the power under PACE s.58, to interview suspects’ ‘if legal advice has been requested but not yet received. If a senior officer has reasonable grounds for believing a delay will involve serious harm’, to evidence or persons they are allowed to interview the suspect without a legal advisor. This is also permitted under Code C 6.6 in relation to vulnerable suspects, and juveniles, police are also permitted to carry out a ‘safety interview’ without an appropriate adult present.

        When suspects successfully obtain legal advice, police working practices often hinder the quality of advice which suspects receive. The Code C 3.1(ii) asserts that a suspect has the right to consult privately with a solicitor however this is not always enforced at every police station. Lord Taylor in the case of R v Derby Magistrates’ Court, ex parte B [1996] stated the importance of this safeguard by emphasising that a ‘...man must be able to consult his lawyer in confidence, since otherwise he might hold back half the truth...’ Pattendenn et al assert that due to a lack of ‘privacy’ when consulting a legal advisor on the telephone suspects have been inhibited from being able ‘...to talk frankly...’ with legal advisors often resulting in ‘...empty advice....’ This is evidenced by the case of R (on the application of M& La Rose) v Metropolitan Commissioner of Police [2001] within which Poole J outlined that the  clients legal advisor limited him to yes/no answers. This was evidenced by the study carried out by Sanders et al.

           Although these findings evidence breaches of Code C, Police depending on the circumstances retain the authority to overhear suspects’ conversations with their legal advisors for two reasons; firstly Code C guidance note 6J states that a suspect has the right to private legal advice unless this is ‘impractical because of the design and layout of the custody area or the location of telephones’ and secondly Pattendenn et al outline that under Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) police with authorisation can legally ‘eavesdrop’ on suspects conversations with legal advisors.

        Although cop culture and police working practices largely account for the failures which render the due process safeguards under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 presentational, the Courts also play an active role in whether or not these safeguards are upheld or breached. Hodgson argues that the enforcement of the provisions which are provided to regulate ‘police interrogations and appropriate adult schemes [depend] in part upon the [C]ourts’ response to breaches of the provisions...’ This is exampled in cases in which the suspect has been induced to confess, or the suspects’ statement is not written accurately at the time of the interview, resulting in their statement being recorded incorrectly.

        Code C 11.7- 8 stipulates that ‘where a conducted interview of a suspect has not been audio recorded at the station...a verbatim record or adequate, summary must be written down...’ The suspect is then required to read and sign the statement, but as Sanders and Young highlight, people often do not read what they sign, whilst what was recorded could be inaccurate. In cases whereby the interview has been tape-recorded, the tapes are rarely listened to by defence lawyers, rendering this safeguard as irrelevant. In the case of Dunn, the police claimed that while reading through the suspect’s statement he had confessed. The suspect and his legal advisor asserted that the there had been no confession given in the interview, but the evidence was still upheld in Court. This demonstrates the way in which the Courts’ response to the breaches of PACE 1984 safeguards, impacts upon whether they are upheld.

          The Courts have however consistently ensured that where an appropriate adult should have been present, the evidence is dismissed against the suspect. This is exampled by the case of Morse and others in which all the evidence held against the suspect was dismissed due to an appropriate adult not being present. This is also demonstrated by the case of Aspinall in which the suspect was interviewed without an appropriate adult. The evidence acquired against the suspect was then subsequently dismissed on appeal, as there was no appropriate adult present during the interview.

          Hodgson argues however that the Courts’ are becoming more reluctant to exclude evidence; in reference to the case of W and other’s the Courts’ held that a mother who was ‘psychotic... suffering from some intellectual deficit [and] paranoid’ was a sufficient appropriate adult for her daughter as these delusions ‘only applied to her neighbours.’ This demonstrates that the Courts impart are encouraging the breaches of these safeguards by the police as they are not fully upholding the provisions.

        Skinns also highlights, in relation to police officers failing to identify vulnerable suspects or those with mental disorders that the police are expected to contain high volumes of crime with few ‘resources.’ This is strengthened by Palmer who outlines that custody areas generally are very busy areas, in which a custody officer may spend up to ‘two or three minutes with a suspect’, and cannot reasonably be expected  identify mental disorders in such a small space of time. This can also be linked to suspects not being able to speak with their legal advisors privately; this demonstrates that the working practices of the police cannot wholly be responsible for the failure to implement these safeguards. Public spending cuts are partly to blame.

        In conclusion, although there are a few minor factors which prevent the due process safeguards under PACE 1984 being enforced it is well evidenced that the police working practices and cop culture have lead to them being significantly hindered and effectively denied to suspects at police stations across Britain.

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