R v Samuel
A confession obtained after a suspect was wrongly denied access to a solicitor should have been excluded.
Facts
Mr Samuel was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery and burglary. He asked to see a solicitor, but the police refused, relying on section 58 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which allowed delay in access to a solicitor where a senior officer reasonably believed that this would lead to the alerting of accomplices. After further interviews, without a solicitor, Mr Samuel confessed to the robbery. He was convicted.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction. The right of access to a solicitor is one of the most important and fundamental rights of a citizen, and the police could delay it only if they reasonably believed that the solicitor would alert accomplices, either intentionally or inadvertently, which would rarely be the case with a professional solicitor. The police had no proper grounds for refusing access, and the trial judge should have excluded the confession under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 because its admission had an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings.
Related cases on criminal justice, evidence and appeals
- Connelly v Director of Public Prosecutions [1964] AC 1254
- Murray v United Kingdom (1996) 22 EHRR 29
- R (Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice [2011] UKSC 18, [2012] 1 AC 48
- R (Hallam) v Secretary of State for Justice [2019] UKSC 2, [2020] AC 279
- R v Cooper [1969] 1 QB 267
- R v Cowan [1996] QB 373
- R v Davis [2008] UKHL 36, [2008] 1 AC 1128
- R v Dunlop [2006] EWCA Crim 1354, [2007] 1 WLR 1657
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