To tell you never to accept a caution?

[brasty]

Or at least not without legal advice.

The police often offer cautions in cases where they know there is not enough evidence to secure a conviction. So if you refuse a caution in these cases, the case will simply be dropped. The caution is offered so that the police can officially say the crime has been cleared and dealt with. But many people accept cautions when they are innocent, because of fear of going to court.

I wish someone had given me this advice many years ago.

Back in my 20’s whilst working for a recruitment company, I created a spreadsheet at home of all the vacancies I saw other companies advertising in the local newspapers (thought I was being proactive). So all public information I was gathering. I sent the spreadsheet to work to contact these companies to see if I could get some of these vacancies to work on.

Some time after I was offered a new job elswhere, so on the day I handed in my notice, I removed the companies I’d already contacted off the spreadsheet as i felt that was for my old company to follow up with now and just emailed the updated sheet back to my home email so I could use it at my new job to contact the remaining uncontacted companies I’d found.

One of my bosses sneakily checked my emails right after I handed in my notice and intercepted the email to stop it being sent to my personal email. So I never even received it. He started ranting and raving and said he was calling the police on me because I’d ‘stolen their information’. I was like WTF? This was my information, that i collated in my own time at home, that it wasn’t information that belonged to them as it was info from the local newspaper that anyone could see and access at any time and that no information belonging to the company was on there, plus I’d removed all the companies I’d already contacted. The other boss was trying to calm him down and saying no need for police etc

I left and thought nothing more of it as I thought he was being ridiculous and petty because I was going to a competitor.

Couple of weeks later I receive a call from the police saying they’d received a complaint and would I mind going to the station for a ‘chat’ and just to get my side of the story. So no arrest or anything, I went down of my own free will to talk to them as they’d requested.

When I got there i said I’d come to talk as requested. Was shown to a room. Was asked if I wanted a solicitor but didn’t think I’d need one as I was only going for an informal chat right? Wrong. I was interviewed, finger printed, accused of stealing information and told that I could accept a caution or it could go to court. I was so frightened I just accepted the caution. I’d never ever been in any sort trouble with the police in all my life (I’d even done some admin temping for them a couple of years previously!). I was absolutely petrified.

When it came to logging the caution, they didn’t even know what to log it as on the computer. They had no idea what to caution me with (think it ended up as ‘misuse of a computer’ or something equally pathetic and unrelated to what they’d accused me of). At the time I had no idea that a caution would stay on file all my life. I thought it was like a warning. It wasn’t explained to me at all.

I was advised years later that I should’ve never accepted that caution. That it was complete bollocks what they did to me and it would never have made it to a court room because at best it was a breach of company policy - if it could even be considered as such given the data didn’t belong to the company in the first place.

I’ve been stuck with this ridiculous caution on my file since, all for emailing myself my own spreadsheet which I never even received

browneyes77

it's even worse when you realise that your boss was breaking the law far more than you.

He was a bit sheepish and agreed that they had gone over the top and that it would be ‘handled differently nowadays’

It's surprising how often we see that one isn't it? Yes, procedures do move forward, but sometimes it's hard to avoid thinking it's a case of doing a bit of shuffling, issuing a few new policy papers and hey presto ... a new dawn is said to have broken, where everything will be just marvelous

You are allowed to refuse them????
Why did no one ever tell me this?

How many have you had wooly?

Interesting that many claiming their caution were unfairly issued then go on to admit they had actually committed a criminal offence.

A caution has to meet the same criteria for charging.

Fuck that, I was offered a caution before they interviewed me. For something I was supposed to have done in the UK. I was in South America and the computer I was supposed to have used was in Australia.

The police also 'offer' cautions to children and tell them they will be removed when they are 18.

I believe there has been a move to alter this.

There is something very wrong about criminalizing a child for something like an argument with a parent that spilled in to the street.

Or just obey the law and the police tend not to bother you

I've never even had a speeding ticket, been bullied by police though.

@stillvicarinatutu thankyou for your comment, its made me feel alot better. Its such a shame that some people feel the need to be so silly, l thought it was such a biazze thing to do and a waste of police time.

Omg browneyes :-(

Sash, you don’t need to be interviewed before being charged.

All, children have to have an appropriate adult with them when at a police station. So it not like they’re alone with nobody watching over them.

What does it mean if you are interviewed under caution? Does that mean that you have accepted a caution?

Flustered - no, it means it's a formal interview that can be written up and used as evidence against you in a court at a later date

MancLife

When there is some evidence maybe, but just because someone made something up about you - I would hope not.

An appropriate adult can be parent/guardian, SW or if not available a responsible adult over the age of 18.

It is easy to see how an under 18 could find themselves persuaded to take a caution if the responsible adult doesn't really know the system and just wants to get home.

I find the terminology of being 'offered' a caution at odds with how I personally work.

I don't offer anyone a caution. I interview and present evidence. The suspect will either admit the offence or deny it. If they admit it, and they are eligible for a caution, I tell them that this is the disposal method that has been decided most appropriate. If they deny it, they will either be charged or summonsed if there is sufficient evidence to support a prosecution, or there will be no further action taken should it not meet the evudential test.

Should they decide they don't wish to accept a caution (bearing in mind they have admitted committing the offence by this point), then they will be summonsed to court, as there is sufficient evidence to meet the evidential test.

I never 'offer' a caution to someone who is not accepting responsibility for committing the offence. As a result, I have never had anyone 'refuse' - by this point the caution is the 'lowest' disposal option, and preferable to court. Again, bear in mind they have admitted the offence already - so the court would be dealing with this admission of guilt, rather than making a decision on guilt.

I am not saying that these other experiences of being 'offered' cautions don't take place - but this is certainly not how my colleagues that I work with and I operate, and I am happy for anyone to have a solicitor if they want one. Some people genuinely don't feel they need one, and often they don't. But they would get the same service from me whether they have one or not.

Haven't RTFT so someone may have mentioned it - there was a video going around recently of a lecture by an American lawyer who basically explained why you should never speak to police at all without a lawyer present. My initial reaction was that it was daft but then I heard him out and he is absolutely right - then at the end he brought up a policeman who basically agreed with everything he said. Very interesting.

I find the terminology of being 'offered' a caution at odds with how I personally work.

Good.

But it is not how everyone practises their policing.

In my case the evidence against me was someone sent an email using a particular laptop.

Evidence for me:

I was out of the country and produced my passport with stamps from the place I was (non EU)

My manager at work spoke to the arresting officer and told him that the person making the accusation had also made some untrue accusations to my workplace, she described it to the arresting officer as 'a vendetta' against me.

The laptop I was supposed to have used was on a different continent to either Europe or the one where I had been when the email was allegedly sent from.

They had the IP address of the computer the email was sent from.

The person making the accusation knew I was not in Europe at the time.

I was offered a caution and told if I did not accept it then they would have to go to my employer (an FE college) and remove any computer I had access to - I had access to all of them.

The arresting officer spoke to the friend who had the laptop and was in Australia - they made the call to Australia.

"Should they decide they don't wish to accept a caution (bearing in mind they have admitted committing the offence by this point), then they will be summonsed to court,"

It was my understanding that the CPS do not decide to take every offence to court, so how can you be sure that if you don't take the caution, the alternative is court?

Browneyes's story is truly terrifying.

"Yes, that's what the guidelines and press officers say. But in the real world there are people who have refused cautions and not been prosecuted - suggesting there wasn't enough evidence to start with."

Or that the offence was too minor?

@Gwenhwyfar The majority of offences for which I give cautions do not need to go to CPS for a charging decision, a Sgt is able to review the evidence and make the ERO decision themselves.

As it is, the decision to caution is effectively the decision to charge, so should the caution not go ahead for some reason, then the decision still stands, it just results in a different disposal, i.e. court.

Florene - but not every case where a person is charged goes to court, isn't that right?

No, if someone is charged then they will appear at court.

However, once it has been decided that there is sufficient evidence to proceed with a charge, if the offender is eligible to receive a caution then the offence can be disposed of by this method instead, thus avoiding the need to charge them and go to court.

Essentially there should never be a situation where someone is 'offered' a caution, refuses it and then receives no further action. If there was sufficient evidence to caution then there is sufficient to charge to court.

Not saying this has never happened (though I myself have never known it happen). Just explaining how it should work.

Florene do you use the term 'disposal method' in front of the accused person? At least in my mind it has connotations of getting rid of something. In fact a caution doesn't get rid of the offence, it cements it.

In my view it shouldn't be possible for a person to accept a caution without legal counsel being present even if the accused person chooses to ignore it. Yes it would be burdensome but it would reinforce the idea to all parties that a caution is very serious and doesn't make the accusation go away.

In the eye of the storm a caution may seem the solution for the accused but there is the risk that accepting a caution is only expedient.