Police Reviewed
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
Changes Recommended
Methods Of Fiji
I (From Our Own Correspondent)
rAT an experienced police officer
be obtained from overseas to ■ train members of the Fiji Police ,n modern crime-investigation methods is one of the most import mt recommendations made in the report of the Commission of In mirv set up by the Government In regard to the investigation into the murder of an Indian, Gopal Reddy (in which allegations of violence used while taking state ments from the two Indians accused jpere the basis of successful appeals igainst death sentences), the Com mission states that it was satisfied that no violence was used. At the same time, the report criticises an jfficer who has since resigned. [The 17-page report recommends the setting up of a Forensic Science
laboratory.
■Other recommendations are that, to enable senior officers to take a greater part in crime-investigation, some increase in the fixed establish ment of officers should be consid ered, and that senior officers should be relieved of the prosecution of minor cases in magistrates’ courts, such cases to be prosecuted by sub tospectors or sergeants. The issue if licences and collection of revenue by police officers should be dis continued.
F The report discusses in detail the present methods of interrogation by ;he police and impresses on all ranks the importance of making im mediate notes of all information ibtained at the scene of a crime. [ It is recommended that as far as xissible all interrogation of witnesses )r prospective witnesses should be done at their homes and not at police stations.
THE vexed question of the ad missibility in evidence of state ments made to the police by accused persons is dealt with at length. The desirability of not allowing such statements to be used at trials had been stressed by a former Chief Justice and an Attorney-General, and the Crown Counsel, Mr. H. R. J. Lewis, told the Commission that the police rather regarded confessions as the “be-all and end-all” of a prosecu tion.
The Court of Appeal, in its judg ment in the appeal brought by the two men sentenced for the murder of Gopal Reddy, stated that it was abundantly satisfied that violence had been used by police in order to obtain statements, following which the Criminal Procedure Code was amended to the effect that no confession made to a police officer below the rank of assistant super intendent shall be proved against a person accused of any crime.
The Commission recommends that this should be repealed.