Bridewell Legal Advice Study (BLAST): an innovation in police station legal advice: interim report

The Bridewell Legal Advice Study (BLAST) was an innovative project which attempted to help improve access to legal advice by basing duty solicitors in a large city centre police station. It had been intended that the project would run over a three month period but one of the main barriers to improving access to legal advice identified was poor relations between the police and the defence. Accordingly, the finding arising out of this first phase of the study was published as an Interim Report. The issues examined include the take-up of legal advice, the length of time people are held in custody and case outcomes. Also explored are some of the reasons why suspects decline legal advice, changing relations between the police and the defence, implications for police performance targets on policing strategies and decision-making as well as the role of police station legal advisers. A second phase of the project went ahead and the findings are reported in a final report

Bridewell Legal Advice Study (BLAST): an innovation in police station legal advice: interim report

The Bridewell Legal Advice Study (BLAST) was an innovative project which attempted to help improve access to legal advice by basing duty solicitors in a large city centre police station. It had been intended that the project would run over a three month period but one of the main barriers to improving access to legal advice identified was poor relations between the police and the defence. Accordingly, the finding arising out of this first phase of the study was published as an Interim Report. The issues examined include the take-up of legal advice, the length of time people are held in custody and case outcomes. Also explored are some of the reasons why suspects decline legal advice, changing relations between the police and the defence, implications for police performance targets on policing strategies and decision-making as well as the role of police station legal advisers. A second phase of the project went ahead and the findings are reported in a final report

"No time for a solicitor": implications for delays on the take-up of legal advice

A study of police custody records highlighted variations between police stations both in the take-up of legal advice and also in the average length of time people were held in custody. To further explore unobserved factors which might impact on such variations a qualitative study has been undertaken of four large police stations. While there were found to be factors in common between police stations which related to delays, there were other factors which were specific to one or two stations only. There were also found to be implications for delays creating potential barriers to legal advice. Such factors raise questions about the extent to which PACE continues to provide sufficient legal safeguards for those held in police custody

Digital legal rights for suspects: users' perspectives and PACE safeguards

Research has consistently shown that many people do not understand their legal rights when arrested by the police. In seeking to help address this problem, a prototype App was developed to provide information to suspects when detained by the police. The prototype was tested with 100 detainees in two large custody suites and the findings are presented in this report. A number of issues are addressed, including police decision-making and the processing of cases, access to legal advice, users’ perspectives of fairness in the criminal process, and the potential for technology to enhance procedural safeguards. The study identified a number of problems relating to suspects’ legal rights. These include, for example, difficulties for suspects in accessing legal advice; with no provision to facilitate a confidential telephone conversation between a solicitor and their client. There were also identified long delays, with the average length of detention being over 17 hours in both police stations – almost double the time identified in an earlier study. Before proceeding, it is important that the gaps identified between the law in books and the law in action are addressed so that information about suspects’ legal rights, contained in an App, reflect practice on the ground

Effective Police Station Legal Advice - Country Report 2: England and Wales

This Country Report for England and Wales has arisen out of a comparative study into police station legal advice, led by Dr Vicky Kemp, University of Nottingham. She received a small grant from the British Academy/Leverhulme to undertake semi-structured interviews with defence lawyers and policy officers responsible for criminal legal aid in six jurisdictions

Effective Police Station Legal Advice - Country Report 6: Scotland

This Country Report for Scotland has arisen out of a comparative study into police station legal advice, led by Dr Vicky Kemp, University of Nottingham. She received a small grant from the British Academy/Leverhulme to undertake semi-structured interviews with defence lawyers and policy officers responsible for criminal legal aid in six jurisdictions

Effective police station legal advice - Country Report 5: Northern Ireland

This Country Report for Northern Ireland has arisen out of a comparative study into police station legal advice, led by Dr Vicky Kemp, University of Nottingham. She received a small grant from the British Academy/Leverhulme to undertake semi-structured interviews with defence lawyers and policy officers responsible for criminal legal aid in six jurisdiction

Ensuring 'appropriate' protections for young suspects

The book is the result of the first part of the European Commission funded research project 'Protecting young suspects in interrogations: a study on safeguards and best practice'. The legal study underlying this volume consisted of comparative research into existing procedural safeguards for juvenile suspects during interrogation in the legal frameworks of five selected Member States of the European Union: Belgium, England and Wales, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands. In Chapter 3 are presented the comparative # findings in relation to England and Wales

Criminal defence services: users’ perspectives: an interim report

A survey was undertaken of over 1,000 people drawn into the criminal justice system in order to find out more about their choice and use of a solicitor: 212 suspects interviewed in police stations, 767 in magistrates’ courts and 163 female prisoners. It was found that people value having a choice of a solicitor with 9 out of 10 respondents saying this was important. Their choice of a solicitor was based mainly on a recommendation and what was important to people was having a ‘good’ solicitor, someone who is experienced, knowledgeable and knows what they are doing. It was also important to respondents to be able to communicate well with their solicitor. There was some confusion over the independence of the police station duty solicitor with a significant minority of respondents believing this was a lawyer employed directly by the police. Of those who did not have a solicitor in the police station most simply said they ‘did not need’ one while others were concerned this would cause a delay. The survey also highlighted people’s understanding of what was happening in the criminal process with those whose first language was not English being less likely to understand what was happening and also less likely to have a solicitor when compared to those whose first language was English