Law: in brief (3)
01 March 1994
Store detectives and the right to silence: As the draconian provisions modifying the right to silence (see Statewatch vol 3, no 6 & vol 4 no 1) passed the Lords Committee stage, Home Officer ministers disclosed that silence in the face of questioning by store detectives and other non-police officers will attract the same adverse judicial comments at trial as silence in police interviews. The admission, in a letter from criminal justice minister David Maclean to Neil Gerrard MP, adds weight to suspicions that the government plans to privatise much of the policing of minor crime, and to concerns that the criminal justice system is being directed by considerations other than the ends of justice.
Independent 2 4 11.2.94; Guardian 5.3.94.