A Confession - ITV

[southeastdweller]

Anyone else going to watch this tonight?

www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-08-29/a-confession-itv-martin-freeman-air-date-time-channel-cast/

@FatherFintanFay thanks for explaining it so well I think there should always be exceptions to every rule though, and this should be one of them.

The fact that Fulcher was a Superintendent shouldn't be used as " well he of all people should have known better" but more "he knew more than most and still chose to ignore PACE to give that murdered woman's family peace".

Looking forward to tonight's episode. Agree with whoever said that perhaps they decided to show David Ainsworth's death as a way of portraying the state Wiltshire Police were in, and how they treated high-ranking officers who were suspended pending an investigation....

There is a provision for statements made before the caution has been given, which is to write it down and ask the person to sign it to confirm it's a true record of their words. I think they did try to do that with Halliwell but he refused to sign. I've had to do it before for the sorts of guys who start telling you their life story before you've even arrested them and never had a problem with getting them to sign. It's a case of terrible bad luck all round, but it wasn't a completely unpredictable outcome. I will look forward to seeing how it all ends up.

Blondeshavemorefun

"And if the step dad hasn’t lied all those years ago it may have been a different ending"

We don't know the dad (not step dad) lied. And if they had known Becky was missing what do you think would have been different?

FatherFintanFay what gamble didn't pay off?

How can a law that protects a multiple murderer from revealing where he hid a body possibly be in the interests of any one except a murder?

I am sure things were corrupt, so take out the corruption. But not allowing a murderer to reveal a victim's body without the need to stop and say 'you do realise this is incriminating' is utter madness.

To me it shows the law does not protect innocent victims. I'm talking about the law, not the police, or individual officers or lawyers. IMHO.

"There can't be different rules for different people." So you have one rule for everyone. You want to show someone where you buried your victim, the police get yo go and investigate without doing anything to stop you revealing that crucial info. Same for all.

Italiangreyhound the gamble was knowingly proceeding without cautioning the suspect in the hope that he would later repeat his confession under caution, or that there would be enough other evidence to convict him anyway. That was what didn't pay off.

I'm only stating what the legal position is. I didn't make it up myself.

And to suggest that "the law" can exist as some sort of abstract concept by itself with no relation to the police officers who are supposed to be enforcing it doesn't make sense. The police are there to investigate crimes to the best of their ability and gather evidence to present to the court, and the court is there to test that evidence and make a ruling based on it. If the evidence is wanting for whatever reason, the ruling can't be made. So whatever intentions an individual officer might have had for bending the rules, if their actions mean that the case gets thrown out, they've fundamentally failed to do their job. I'm not saying anything about this individual case because I haven't seen the full story yet. You can sympathise with someone's actions, and even say that you would have done the same thing yourself while still acknowledging that mistakes were made.

FatherFintanFay OK we can talk about it again when the series is finished.

I can't really see how your post relates to mime but let's wait until it finishes in just over a week.

Are you a police officer? You don't need to answer that if you don't want to.

I used to be. It's a shit, frustrating sort of a job a lot of the time. Early on, you have to get your head around the fact that people will get away with stuff all the time because they can just choose not to cooperate and there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to try not to make it easier for them by fucking up the procedural side of things.

I made a minor error once when I was investigating a nasty sort of a case which meant it couldn't proceed to a charge. I will never forget how much I wanted to smash in the face of the suspect when I had to tell him he was free to go, and he just did this little smirk, as if to say "Ha, got away with it". But I completely took responsibility for messing that up so I guess that's why I'm a touch less sympathetic in this case. It felt a bit like Fulcher "pulled rank" on the other officers to get them to go along with it.

He lied and said he saw her when didhb. So police weren’t out looking for her

Or did I get that wrong

Blondeshavemorefun well I certainly may be wrong! but I though he had said members of his extended family had seen her, not him.

I might try and watch that bit again.

If he did lie, it is utterly appalling.

I am just not sure if his family members had purposely lied or simply been mistaken.

Becky was quite distinctive looking and so in one sense one might think how could they get mixed up, but then maybe they saw a woman who looked like her. but either way, I can't imagine her body would have been found. The reason Sian was found so quickly was because it was reported straight away.

Poor Becky's mum had no idea exactly when she went missing, no fault of hers at all, but certainly the untruths from the distant relations or whoever made it much, much worse.

FatherFintanFay I am sorry to hear that, that must be absolute shit.

I make mistakes at work all the time but my job is more mundane so I sort it out and all is fine. I am truly sorry for police and others who carry such a burden.

Can I ask, in all honestly, without necessarily referencing to your own job, what purpose does the caution serve. Do the criminals really not know that talking about their crimes might lead to the conversations being brought up in court! That is a genuine question.

It's more to do with making them understand the consequences of NOT saying anything these days. The bulk of the caution is to advise them that if they go "no comment" during their interview but then come up with a seemingly plausible explanation for their across in court, the prosecution might well want to know why they didn't just say that in the first place. A lot of not especially bright offenders latch onto no comment answers because they think it protects them legally and they've been advised to by a duty solicitor who isn't being paid enough to come up with decent advice and resents being dragged out at stupid o'clock.

The "anything you do say may be used in evidence" is almost incidental but it has to be said because you can't assume anything more than the most basic understanding of the legal system. You'd be surprised how many people tried to get a comment taken off the record and then got all annoyed when they were told it didn't work like that.

Is no comment not the best thing to do then? (I mean from the point of view of the perpetrator)
I thought they were advised this because it was

Depends what other evidence there is. If their DNA is all over the victim and there are supporting independent witness accounts, it could go against them, i.e. no sentence reduction for a guilty plea. If the police have nothing, no comment is definitely safest. But it's not the magic get-out that some people think it is.

Thanks FatherFintanFay.

Start of programme, heart breaking for Karen. Still so upset for Steve too.

It's such a well made programme. Martin Freeman is very convincing.

Father so do all solicitors always advise no comment when they know it's not in their best interest sometimes?

It is seeming like a bit of a witch-hunt now. It feels like everyone's turned against him. I thought people would stick by him

Martin Freeman is very convincing

he's phenomenal in this role.

purpleme

"It is seeming like a bit of a witch-hunt now. It feels like everyone's turned against him. I thought people would stick by him"

I think that is why they included the bit at the start with his colleague who was accused of something and then committed suicide. He was badly treated by the force so it was a forerunner of Steve's treatment but for different reasons.

Yes, I think their treatment of him was extremely heavy-handed. There was a complaint against him, and he did demonstrably breach the law, so there had to be an investigation. But you get the feeling that he wasn't well-liked by the other senior officers, and that if it was anyone else, they would have taken into account the fact that he was trying to recover Sian alive, and how much work went into finding Halliwell. They didn't acknowledge that he got a conviction for Sian's murder or that at least Becky's body was found when it might not have been otherwise. Possibly a verdict of misconduct (without the gross bit) and a verbal warning would have been sufficient if it was the first time he'd had a complaint against him.

Fulcher is coming across as slightly bullish under attack. I wonder if he had a bit of a reputation for doing things his own way and sailing too close to the procedural wind, as it were. It's just interesting that he seems to have so few colleagues on his side, when the police are usually known for closing ranks and protecting each other, especially amongst the senior grades.

Playing Devil's advocate for this but, I suppose Steve Fulcher's actions ie. not following PACE regs, could be argued to have brought the police service into disrepute and have undermined public confidence (innitially), therefore this would constitute gross misconduct.
His case wouldn't have been helped by Becky's father shouting to whoever would listen, that the case had been cocked up.
Senior Managers in many professions, IMHO, are always quick to distance themselves from colleagues in these sort of situations. They're terrified of being though of as guilty by association.
He must have gained some solace from Becky's Mum's unstinting support for him.

Wingedharpy IMHO what bring the police force into disreput is that the protection of a murder is put above that of his victims. Shocking. And Karen's petition to have PACE investigated was it felt passed from pillar to post, before being rejected. Shockingly bad.

If the Caution is all about making sure people don't misuse or wrongly use (in any way, even for for their own benefit) the 'no comment' response then it could still be given to the suspect after he had revealed where he hid the body of the woman he killed. The revelation of the resting place of a murder victim does not 'unfairly' affect a murderer, IMHO.

The police aren't responsible for passing laws, though, so whatever failings and weaknesses PACE might have, it isn't their fault. They also aren't the ones who get to say whether the law can be amended. It's government, specifically the Home Office and the Justice Secretary who you want to be directing your ire at - the police just have to implement the law whether they personally agree with it or not. It's not for individual officers to decide when they're going to follow the rules and when they're not.

Interesting that Robert Buckland, the MP who tried to help Becky's mum with her petition, is now Secretary of State for Justice.

I feel it was odd that they focused on Sian’s mothers relationship. Who she marries and what kind of person he is doesn’t really make much odds. She is a real woman, her relationship isn’t part of the story.

Yes that's why I wondered if that's what it was like in real life cos it seemed quite an odd thing to put in a story like this