Should you answer questions in a police interview?

Get a solicitor first. It is free.

Advice at the police station is free to everyone, at any hour, regardless of means. It is not a service you have to qualify for and it is not something you are charged for afterwards.

Asking for a solicitor does not suggest guilt, and it does not add the delay people imagine. It is the single most useful thing you can do at that stage.

Why disclosure matters before anything else

Before an interview, your solicitor is entitled to ask the officer what the allegation is and what evidence there is to support it. That conversation is the basis of every decision that follows.

You cannot sensibly decide whether to answer questions when you do not know what is being put to you. Neither can anyone advising you.

The three options

Broadly, there are three courses, and each is right in different circumstances.

• Answering questions — where you have a clear account that is supported by the evidence, and putting it early can resolve matters
• A prepared statement — a written account handed in, after which you decline to answer questions, giving your account without being drawn beyond it
• No comment — where disclosure is inadequate, where the position is genuinely unclear, or where you are unwell or unfit to be interviewed

What the caution really means

The caution warns that it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you later rely on in court. That is the adverse inference, and it is why silence is not automatically the safe option.

But an inference can only be drawn in defined circumstances, and it cannot be drawn where you remained silent on legal advice for a reason that was proper at the time. That is another reason the advice itself matters.

A prepared statement is often the middle course

It puts your account on record at the earliest stage, which addresses the risk of an adverse inference, while avoiding hours of questioning about matters you may not remember precisely.

It has to be drafted carefully. An account that is inaccurate in a detail can cause more difficulty later than saying nothing would have.

Things worth knowing

• A voluntary interview is still a formal interview, under caution, with the same consequences
• You are entitled to free legal advice at a voluntary interview too
• You can ask for a break to speak to your solicitor privately at any point
• Nothing said in the interview room is off the record

The stage that shapes everything after

Cases are frequently decided by what happens in the interview room, long before anyone reaches a courtroom. An account given without advice, under pressure and without knowing what the police hold, can be very difficult to move away from later.

John has attended police stations since 2003. If you have been asked to attend an interview, speak to him before you go.