Letter: Record what witnesses say

Sir: For a number of years my collaborator, Anthony Heaton-Armstrong, and I have been advocating the introduction of rules requiring the police to tape-record the taking of all potentially contentious witness statements. This is not generally done at present and, although Home Office guidelines rather inadequately suggest that in serious cases it may be "beneficial" to do so, there is no firm check upon what a prosecution witness actually said to the police when making a written statement.

The result is that material differences between that statement and evidence given by the witness in court later are often exploited in impugning the witness's reliability instead of being attributed to defective transcription on the part of the officer taking the statement. It is widely accepted among criminal lawyers that this may be the single most common cause of wrongful acquittals.

We expanded on this topic in our recent article in your columns ("A sounder system", 16 April) and argued that if the parties were serious in their commitment to law and order issues they could demonstrate it through an election pledge to implement our proposal. I have since been in contact with Alun Michael, Labour police affairs spokesman, who has, I gather, consulted Gordon Brown. Understandably enough, Labour's position is that no firm pledge can be given at this stage, since there has been no opportunity to cost the measure. Happily, however, I have been informed that they agree with it in principle and, subject to examining the question of cost (or savings), intend giving it serious consideration if they win.

DAVID WOLCHOVER

London NW11