Well, the police contacted me to say they had arrested a couple of men for burglary in a nearby town, and suspected they were the same suspects in our adventure of the previous night. Would I be prepared to look at some photographs? Obviously, the answer was, yes. Why? Several reasons, as follows.
Everything was done very carefully. One of the suspects had asked for a solicitor, who attended the parade to ensure that there was no prompting. The second suspect had no solicitor, so the process was videoed. The police staff were from a different station and had no direct involvement in the case to ensure there was no collusion.
I was asked to view each parade twice without comment. Thereafter I could see it as many times as I needed to, and freeze on any individual images I wanted to. After each presentation, I was asked a series of questions, to which my answers were recorded exactly.
The first of my two parades showed a series of faces with just the area around the eyes showing. One of the suspects I had seen had taken great care to conceal his identity. I had also been at least 10m away from him. If he was in the parade, I had no idea.
The second of my parades showed clear views of the faces; the other suspect had not shown such nous as to disguise himself. As soon as I saw the first image, I knew the person I had seen was unlikely to be on show. All the images in a parade are selected to match the suspect closely. The guy I had seen had more hair and longer stubble. Sure enough, I was unable to identify anyone.
Interestingly, the stolen bikes were in the station. I had no trouble identifying them!
- Criminals should not be allowed to set the tone of our society.
- Criminals do not care about their victims. Why protect them by looking the other way?
- The police provide us with a valuable service but need our eyes and ears.
- We cannot expect to call on the police when we need their help but turn them away when they need ours.
Everything was done very carefully. One of the suspects had asked for a solicitor, who attended the parade to ensure that there was no prompting. The second suspect had no solicitor, so the process was videoed. The police staff were from a different station and had no direct involvement in the case to ensure there was no collusion.
I was asked to view each parade twice without comment. Thereafter I could see it as many times as I needed to, and freeze on any individual images I wanted to. After each presentation, I was asked a series of questions, to which my answers were recorded exactly.
The first of my two parades showed a series of faces with just the area around the eyes showing. One of the suspects I had seen had taken great care to conceal his identity. I had also been at least 10m away from him. If he was in the parade, I had no idea.
The second of my parades showed clear views of the faces; the other suspect had not shown such nous as to disguise himself. As soon as I saw the first image, I knew the person I had seen was unlikely to be on show. All the images in a parade are selected to match the suspect closely. The guy I had seen had more hair and longer stubble. Sure enough, I was unable to identify anyone.
Interestingly, the stolen bikes were in the station. I had no trouble identifying them!
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