Accepting a police caution question

[Hiddentext]

My other half accepted a caution for criminal damage to a van a year ago, he felt railroaded into accepting it despite many reservations, but we just wanted it done and gone at the time, never having been in trouble with police before. We now regret not challenging it, without going into too much detail, the people alleging criminal damage waited a month before bringing it to our/police attention, the policeman involved admitted not having seen scratches in person, or seeing proof of payment of repairs. We never saw scratches in person. We are now challenging this as part of a larger complaint/investigation. There is however cctv footage, police will not release CCTV footage used, photos which he said he saw but we never saw, and will not address the point of whether they saw proof of payment for a pretty large amount of money for scratch repair. Does anyone know where we stand on this? Are we wasting our time pursuing a year after event?

For him to have pleaded guilty he must have meant to damage the van , no matter what he is now saying

Disagree. People do plead guilty to crimes they have not committed. People do accept cautions for crimes they have not committed. The fact he accepted the caution proves absolutely nothing about whether he meant to damage the van.

@prh47bridge

For him to have pleaded guilty he must have meant to damage the van , no matter what he is now saying

Disagree. People do plead guilty to crimes they have not committed. People do accept cautions for crimes they have not committed. The fact he accepted the caution proves absolutely nothing about whether he meant to damage the van.

I think we can agree he was badly advised.

But we have absolutely what key facts we've not been privy to.

Hopefully this discussion will have alerted some people to the issues around "accepting" a caution they might otherwise have been unaware of, and of the value of getting professional legal advice in any and all dealings with the police as a suspect.

No there was no intention to damage the van at all, and yes this is a lesson for other people reading this, get sound legal advice before accepting a caution.

If it had been brought to our attention at the time, of course we would have paid for the damage, but it wasn't. First we heard about it was a month later.

Do you think these people are using the Police to harass your partner? Maybe he should look into getting some proper legal advice if this is going to be an on-going situation.

Why did he accept the caution?

He accepted caution as very distressed, worried about his career, line of least resistance at the time, just wanting it gone. Yes police have been weaponised against us, and I have a feeling the PC may be a friend. We have put official complaint in to police, mainly over the arrest mentioned earlier. Got a whitewash back. It's now going to IOPC.

A lot of people don’t understand that a caution is the same as pleading guilty to the suspected crime in court, the only difference is as a reward for admitting guilt at the first hurdle and saving the police and the courts the time and effort of a trial for a minor offence you are given a formal warning as a punishment rather than something more serious.
Most people have no idea what it means and that you still end up with a criminal record and it comes up on dbs checks, most people seem to think it’s just a warning.

A close friend of mine made the same mistake.
She was 17, a girl who was the same age as her had been bullying her 14 year old sister for months, literally making her life miserable and making her suicidal. The school and police had done nothing to help.
My friend found a note written by her sister which was a draft of a suicide note which included her plan of how she was going to kill herself, she lost it and went to confront the bully and demand she leave her sister alone.
They argued, the bully said something along the lines of “it’s not my fault she’s so pathetic she’s probably going to top herself, but I can’t wait to piss on her grave when she does” she then laughed in her face and my friend pushed her (not hard, just pushed her back away from her).
They argued for a long time, lots of shouting and screaming but eventually we pulled her out of it and walked away.

The next day the girl went to the police, she told them she was attacked, she had cuts and bruises and said my friend had done it, fortunately there was a cctv camera right next to where the argument happened and the officer had seen the footage so knew the bully was lying, but because my friend admitted pushing the girl during the argument the officer told her it was assault.
He was very nice to her and sympathetic about her sister and she thought he was on her side, he told her because she admitted the assault he had to give her a caution and she didn’t question it, she just did what she was told.

None of us realised what it meant.

It wasn’t until several years later when my friend was applying for jobs in the role she had just completed a degree in did she realised the caution meant she had a criminal record for assault and she would massively struggle to find a job in the career she had spend four years studying to do, she was crushed and it had lasting consequences for her.

I’ve no idea why it is not taught in schools.
My friend has spoken to a lot of people in her situation who were told “we are just going to give you a caution since it’s your first offence” and just accepting it.

Did he have a duty solicitor at the time? You’re entitled to free legal aid.

As in, you’re entitled to free legal aid whilst in police custody eg being interviewed under caution. It would probably be too late now.

Unless the police didn’t properly inform him of his rights

I was wondering whether he was advised he was entitled to a solicitor - hopefully he didn't just turn one down.

@Elementalillusion what an awful story, and yes we had a seemingly pleasant PC, I remember him saying "don't worry I'll look after you" to my partner and to me.

Yes he had a duty solicitor at the questioning stage. Not at the signing for the caution officially stage.

A couple of months after accepting caution and paying £800!scratch repair, the van owner asked my partner why he paid it, so we are deeply suspicious but will probably never know for sure.

This thread seems only to contain prim and proper people, revelling in the fact the guy has got a conviction. No sympathy from posters.

I feel really sorry for him.

I've seen police pressurise people, and they don't realise what they are agreeing to.

Plus the pencil the month after ....

@hastingsmua1

Unless the police didn’t properly inform him of his rights

The only rights the police have to inform you of are in the caution. Beyond that, you're on your own.

Remember the whole media campaign against people who "know their rights" as troublemakers and career criminals ?

There's a sort of unwritten rule that emerges as you get older. That people who seek out positions of authority are 50% of the time not fit to hold them. Unfortunately the best selection process in the world only rejects about 90% of them. That's across the board. Councillors, MPs ... and of course police officers. So with the best will in the world you have a 10% chance of getting an absolute twat. Or, to boil it down, 1 in 10 calls to the police will summon a total knobhead. Who can arrest you and make your life hell.

@ProfessorSlocombe that’s not true, this is what the government website states

MNers do regularly give advice to posters to get the police involved and quite often it’s just weaponising the police in a petty battle.

Dragging in the IOPC is just another escalation of what would be a shrub and pencil issue.

On a similar topic, I often come across people that give a ‘no comment’ interview on legal advice and then bitterly regret it later.

@BananaPop2020

On a similar topic, I often come across people that give a ‘no comment’ interview on legal advice and then bitterly regret it later.

Do they outnumber people who refuse to accept a caution and see no further action ?

With the obvious caveat there's a lot the OP hasn't told us, on the face of it if their DP has said "thanks, but no thanks" when offered a caution, it's hard to see how a case would have progressed to court.

@LemonTT I don't think it's going to go to the IOPC stage. We have complained formally through Local constabulary channels, particularly about the wrongful arrest, after over three months of investigation we had a whitewash response back to our complaints, but, there were things in the report we got back from the investigation into our complaints that we hadn't known about before, whether deliberately included I don't know, where the PC had obviously lied to us and his sergeants who ok'd the arrest, we have put together a very well considered and polite response to the report as we were invited to, pointing out many things, I get the feeling there is more going on behind the scenes than we know about, I'm hoping that although we may not be able to over turn the caution, we may get some redress for the wrongful arrest at local level.

@ProfessorSlocombe I have no idea. I was just musing really.

Couple of things here really. First of all criminal damage does not have to be intentional is can also be reckless. If the average person could have foreseen the risk of cutting down a tree next to a car but your husband did it anyway and actually caused the damage then the offence is complete. The fact your husband did not mean to in neither here nor there (I’m not saying this is the case just explaining a point).

Second, your husband had legal advice, what did they tell him to say/do? If they advised him to admit the offence and he could avoid court with a caution then the issue is with the legal advice not with the police. You mention there are no photos, receipts etc but all police need is victim/witness statement it is how many incidents are dealt with.

Finally, you want to complain about the police actions but what specifically are you saying they have done wrong? Your post says he admitted the offence AFTER having legal advice, what did you expect the police to do? What did you expect would happen?

I am not saying your husband or the police are at fault (there is not enough information in your post to say either way) but regretting a decision 1 year later does not mean the decision was wrong at the time.

Imagining there is more going on behind the scenes that we know about is sounding quite paranoid, tbh. He accepted the caution... 🤷🏻‍♀️