This idea that we all have a right to fair treatment – no matter who we are or what we’ve done in the past – is fundamental to your liberty as much as anyone else’s.

This applies especially in violent crime, where emotions run high and judgment is easily impaired.

Remember that victim/suspect statements are PART of the evidence being gathered, not the whole. Forensics can make or break a case.

2. The police are not the people who determine whether or not a case is prosecuted. That is – and has been since the 80s – down to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service), which is so overloaded that they tend to make a quick judgment of probability of winning a case (if it seems that it’s a 60%+ probability, they’ll push it)

3. The police clearly did not prefer the burglar’s statement over the householder’s. They took both statements, weighed them, and returned to the burglar and got a new statement. This is standard practice – keep clarifying until you’re satisfied that all the loose ends are tied up.

4. There is very little information about the forensic evidence, but if it didn’t back up the householder’s story, he’d be in real schtuck. If it was questionable enough to provide reasonable doubt that the stabbing occurred as he said, then we go back to point 1: that statements are not the be all and end all – the statements of victims, suspects, and witnesses must be balanced against forensics, and it is in the match or mismatch between the two that the case lies. And that’s why repeated interviews and careful forensic study is essential

5. Do you know the precise timeline and process for statement gathering? Do you know the extent of the boy’s injuries, whether he was undergoing other processes (medical, legal, social services) which might have put back the timing of the second round of interviews? As a minor, he would be in a different position than an adult suspect with regards to access.

5a. How many other investigations were the local CID working on at the same time? Do you know whether the timing was affected by, for example, ongoing collaboration with the drugs squad, needing to deal with a serious child abuse case or interview victims of rape or armed robbery, officers giving evidence in other court cases..?

5b. How simple was the forensics testing necessary in this case? How quickly could the tests be processed? How much of a backlog did the local pathologists have to deal with before they got to the dead burglar? How soon after medical treatment were they able to look at the injured boys wounds (this would depend on the superficiality or deepness of the injuries)? How disturbed was the scene when SOCO (Scene Of Crime Officers) arrived? How many tests were already being done by the labs when the new evidence came in?

6. Why didn’t the 14-year old provide this information immediately? Why didn’t the police get it out of him first time round? Well, seriously. He might be a pathological liar; he might have been on his first every criminal endeavour and frightened out of his mind; he might be manipulative and hard; the police officers might have only had minutes with him for an initial statement because the hospital was treating him for his wounds; the police officers might have been inept – very capable and faced with a boy who just didn’t want to tell the truth; the boy might have panicked and lied and then come to his senses later; the boy might have been bolshy and then talked round by a good brief… do you know? Neither do I, and I bet only the people involved have a clue. Remember: initial statements by immediate suspects and victims are ALWAYS followed up at least once; changes in statements are normal and expected, even when the interviewee is utterly innocent and eager to cooperate, because memory plays tricks and because people have a chance to think more calmly in between times.

Sadly, crimes are not committed to the police’s timetable. It is often forgotten that officers are often engaged in multiple investigations simultaneously, and that each of these involves taking statements, waiting for forensics to be done testing, pathologists reports to come through.

We live in the world of Miami CSI where we seem to think that police and forensics units have unlimited time, energy, and budgets and can proceed entirely unconstrained by ongoing investigations. We think that everything should be immediate, and it’s hard to understand how this stuff works in reality.

It’s terribly easy to demand that these things are sorted out immediately and perfectly, and to forget that many rounds of clarification may be needed even when there are no backlogs or other complicating factors.

Leaping to assumptions based on lack of information is a big problem, and we all do it at times.