The following advice applies to those who have been invited to the police station for a voluntary police interview. This advice does also extend to requests from police for a voluntary written statement.
From our collective experience and that of solicitors working in this field, the letter and the offer of an interview is no indication of a likelihood you will be charged.
We have discussed this and we don't recommend attending an interview offered by the police.
The reasoning behind this response:
- There is no advantage that we can see to doing it.
- The legally experienced members of the group are of the opinion that the police offer interviews as a way to gather evidence against the arrested person or other arrestees. It is not seen as a way to vindicate yourself or as a way to bring material to court if you are charged at a later date. You won't be disadvantaged in any way by not attending and if you are charged you will still be able to make your case in court regardless of whether you attend the interview or not.
- Solicitors that XR rebels are working with recommend against it. In the past solicitors have said that it can be a sign that the police don't have enough evidence against you to bring charges - this is not absolute, just might be an indicator.
- We also don't see the benefit of submitting a written statement via email at this juncture. Although we don't have any reference of this exact point from our previous collective experiences. If at a later date you are charged, and regardless of whether you decide to plead guilty or not guilty, you will still be able to share your reasons in court for any actions you may have taken - emailing a statement won't improve or reduce the chances of you making your point. Submitting a statement during a police interview at the point of arrest was intended to help get it into court, but we don't have evidence that emailing one would help in any way and there might be risks of which we are unaware.
For general information about the post arrest process please read here:
And for the post charge process please read here:
If you have any further questions, please do get in touch with us or call a solicitor directly.