The standards of service for all witnesses of crime are set out in the Witness Charter.
It has been developed to tell you how you can expect to be treated by the police if you are a witness to a crime or incident.
It also covers standards of care for other criminal justice agencies and lawyers if you are required to give evidence in court.
The Standards of Care Include:
- You will be treated fairly and with respect according to your needs irrespective of race, religion and belief, background, gender or gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability or marital or civil partnership status.
- If you provide a statement to police, this will include an initial assessment of your needs as a witness. This information will be used to decide how the investigation of the case will proceed, and to ensure that arrangements are made to meet your needs if you are called to give evidence in court.
- The police will inform you when the defendant has been charged, whether the defendant has been released on bail or held in custody and what relevant bail conditions apply.
- One of our Witness Care Units will provide a single point of contact for you and will tailor arrangements for your attendance at court to meet your personal circumstances.
- Every effort will be made to ensure you are only asked to attend court on the day on which you are required to give evidence.
- One of our Witness Care Units will notify you of the outcome of your case and, if relevant, the sentence. They will also explain to you what the sentence means.
A neighbour of the grandmother of murdered schoolgirl Tia Sharp told detectives he had seen her when in fact she was already dead, a court heard.
Bus driver Paul Meehan, 40, from Croydon, south London, is on trial charged with wasting police time.
He was the neighbour of Christine Sharp, whose boyfriend Stuart Hazell was jailed in May for a minimum of 38 years for killing 12-year-old Tia.
Meehan initially told police he had not seen Tia on August 3 last year, but later claimed he was "100% sure" he watched her walk past his home at around noon that day.
Jocelyn Ledward, prosecuting, said: "He described her outfit and person in detail."
She said this was "thereby in fact confirming Stuart Hazell's account of her having walked out of the door at that time".
Tia's mother Natalie sat in the public gallery at Croydon Magistrates' Court during the trial, which is set to last one day.
Miss Ledward said Meehan's claim had the result of "compounding the family's false hope" that she was still alive.
It also led detectives to conduct "labour intensive interviews", she added. "These were a waste of valuable police resources at a crucial time."
But she told the court: "There is absolutely no suggestion Mr Meehan was in league with Stuart Hazell."
Instead, she suggested he made the report "perhaps in order to increase his importance in the investigation".
The court was read a statement given to police by Meehan, in which he claimed he saw Tia walk towards a bus stop while he was having a cigarette in his front garden.
"From the time I saw Tia I didn't take my eyes off her," he told detectives.
He said the reason for watching her was "a parental thing" - but he did not attempt to talk to her as he thought she was wearing headphones.
Meehan insisted that "nobody has forced me" to make the police statement, saying: "I have made it under my own free will."
After his arrest, he told officers: "I definitely saw her leave the house. Whether she came back I don't know."
Meehan denies causing wasteful employment of the police by making a false report.
"All witnesses should be treated with courtesy and every attempt should be made to put witnesses at their ease. It is preferable to speak to witnesses in a private room so that there is a more relaxed environment. At the outset, you should explain to the witness that the primary aim of taking a statement from them is to find out what happened.
Any statement should be written and signed in ink. Witness statements should be drafted so that they are concise and to the point. They should only deal with matters within the direct knowledge of the witness. As far as is possible, you should try to record the witness’ own words.
You may find it helpful to take notes before beginning to write the statement. Once the statement has been completed you should offer to allow the witness to read it; otherwise you should read the statement over to the witness before it is signed. If there are any alterations on the statement, these should be initialled by the witness.
When questioning the witness you should ask all relevant questions ie pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry, whether these point towards or away from the potential accused.
Your primary concern is with obtaining the best evidence possible from witnesses. Therefore you will want to know, and should ask, whether the witness has discussed their evidence with anyone else (including the solicitor representing any suspect e.g. a company/employer or another person). If there is any information relevant to the weight to be attached to a witness’ evidence, this should be recorded in your notebook."
Three witnesses saw Tia Sharp leave her grandmother’s house at midday,
including her grandmother’s boyfriend Stuart Hazell, who lived there.
He had told the girl to be back by 6 o’clock, to which she had replied, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” as she left.
The grandmother was not present.
The following Thursday, while the search was still on for Tia Sharp and her abductor, Hazell appeared in a TV interview himself saying that he had not had anything to do with the girl's disappearance, public suspicion having fallen on him because he was the last person known to have had contact with the missing girl.
Exactly as with his precedecessor in arch misfortune, Caretaker Huntley a decade earlier, this dark undercurrent of deeply unsavoury inuendo had indeed been mounting steadily within the somewhat insular local community with each passing day, reverberating around the tiny, isolated estate, becoming as is did increasingly a more noticeable and clamorous din.
Resonance being the way it is, there is only one way in which a careless but malicious whisper can build into a bestial, bellowing roar, building on it's own native intensity reflected back onto itself over and over again, building upwards exponentially :
Constant, round-the clock, negative reinforcement via the news media, drip-feeding poison to a community on edge.
The Police investigation was not merely creating a rarified sense of fear, suspicion and anxiety by refusing to name any suspect - close reading of contemporary news reports filed throughout the week leading up to the official "discovery" of Tia's mortal remains in the council house make it stridently clear from at least as early as the Monday morning, Hazell had been identified as dupe to pin the crime on and clear the case in record time.
Officers from Croydon CID as well as the Yard were quite clearly briefing against Hazell right from the start while they began piling up stacks of firewood sufficient to engulf him in a mighty blaze, come the appointed hour.
As a Judas Goat sacrifice, he was perfect - a broad-shouldered, wild-eyed former crackaddict with a bad record and previous, he seemed genuinely at peace with himself and appeared to have found a place for himself , just as fellow misfit-in-arms Tia had finding in that house a sense of family and acceptance lacking in the Merton house her birth Mum shared with her new dodgy geezer step-dad and the family they had proceeded to start together, raising her two half-brothers.
Hazell and her Nan always kept some sausage rolls in the fridge it seems, just in case she ever felt like dropping over to theirs for the weekend, rather than spending it at home and feeling so much as if she was just getting in the way...
Resonance being the way it is, there is only one way in which a careless but malicious whisper can build into a bestial, bellowing roar, building on it's own native intensity reflected back onto itself over and over again, building upwards exponentially :
Constant, round-the clock, negative reinforcement via the news media, drip-feeding poison to a community on edge.
The Police investigation was not merely creating a rarified sense of fear, suspicion and anxiety by refusing to name any suspect - close reading of contemporary news reports filed throughout the week leading up to the official "discovery" of Tia's mortal remains in the council house make it stridently clear from at least as early as the Monday morning, Hazell had been identified as dupe to pin the crime on and clear the case in record time.
Officers from Croydon CID as well as the Yard were quite clearly briefing against Hazell right from the start while they began piling up stacks of firewood sufficient to engulf him in a mighty blaze, come the appointed hour.
As a Judas Goat sacrifice, he was perfect - a broad-shouldered, wild-eyed former crackaddict with a bad record and previous, he seemed genuinely at peace with himself and appeared to have found a place for himself , just as fellow misfit-in-arms Tia had finding in that house a sense of family and acceptance lacking in the Merton house her birth Mum shared with her new dodgy geezer step-dad and the family they had proceeded to start together, raising her two half-brothers.
Hazell and her Nan always kept some sausage rolls in the fridge it seems, just in case she ever felt like dropping over to theirs for the weekend, rather than spending it at home and feeling so much as if she was just getting in the way...
Then a very strange set of events occurred.
The police suddenly changed their investigation from that of an abduction and sealed off the house in which he and Tia's grandmother lived, including that of the neighbour, Paul Meehan, who was one of the witnesses that had seen the girl leave her grandmother's house that day.
The police now concentrated their investigation among the bins and surroundings of the house itself, and inside it, despite it having been searched several times before, including with sniffer dogs, and despite the witnesses who had seen her leaving the house.
The police now concentrated their investigation among the bins and surroundings of the house itself, and inside it, despite it having been searched several times before, including with sniffer dogs, and despite the witnesses who had seen her leaving the house.
Then a very strange set of events occurred.
The police suddenly changed their investigation from that of an abduction and sealed off the house in which he and Tia's grandmother lived, including that of the neighbour, Paul Meehan, who was one of the witnesses that had seen the girl leave her grandmother's house that day.
The police suddenly changed their investigation from that of an abduction and sealed off the house in which he and Tia's grandmother lived, including that of the neighbour, Paul Meehan, who was one of the witnesses that had seen the girl leave her grandmother's house that day.
The police now concentrated their investigation among the bins and surroundings of the house itself, and inside it, despite it having been searched several times before, including with sniffer dogs, and despite the witnesses who had seen her leaving the house.
Media attention having switched to himself, Stuart Hazell was soon recognized by a member of the public buying vodka in a shop in Merton,
This is around 8 miles due West of New Addington;
After going missing from the house he had been essentaially confined to under informal house arrest to for the best part of a week, he somehow was able to slip away from the massive community and police pressence searching the streets, hours, if not minutes prior top the fateful "discovery" of Tia's reamains in the attic, where AT LEAST four previous full searches, with police sniffer dog teams had failed to notice on every previous day that week.Hazzell was actually arrested, drunk out of his mind and sobbing in uncontrollable grief on Merton Common - intially, he had been identified by a local child of Tia's own age, who came across him weaping his heart out whilst cowering from view in an area of some dense bushes, who claims to have recognised him, "got scared" and raised the alarm.
He was eventually arrested half-curled into a foetal position, paralytic and absorbing the shoves, jeers and mob rage of a gathering crowd of engaged members of the public set on stabbing him to death with their keys, as he offered to resistance to their blows.
Merton Common is approximately 8 miles due West of New Addington - and almost right on top of the house Tia's birth mother resided in with her new family and wirey, shifty-looking partner with the illegal gambling income and big, lairy jailhouse neck tattoos pocking out from under his respectable shirt collar.
Neither one was ever questioned closely or investigated by Croydon CID.
and he was arrested and charged with murder....
while Paul Meehan, the witness who lived next door and had supported Hazell's account of Tia Sharp's exit from the house, was bailed on suspicion of having assisted an offender.
This is a fairly novel concept - the charge of assisting an offender apparently preceeded not only the eventual trial of Hazell in the Old Bailey, but also the official coroner's inquest into Tia's death;
How can the Metropolitan Police move to arrest, charge and bail Mr. Meehan on suspicion of having assisted an offender
(by proving, with his voluntary witness statement him to be Innocent of any alleged crime)
But more so even than that dread possibility - charged on suspicion of aiding an offender even before it was agreed or ascertained that a crime of any description had indeed even actually occurred....
At that point, no-one new with any certainty that she hadn't been just stung to death by killer bees ...
Much less who murdered her, how, and who was helping the killer to get away with it.....
This is around 8 miles due West of New Addington;
After going missing from the house he had been essentaially confined to under informal house arrest to for the best part of a week, he somehow was able to slip away from the massive community and police pressence searching the streets, hours, if not minutes prior top the fateful "discovery" of Tia's reamains in the attic, where AT LEAST four previous full searches, with police sniffer dog teams had failed to notice on every previous day that week.Hazzell was actually arrested, drunk out of his mind and sobbing in uncontrollable grief on Merton Common - intially, he had been identified by a local child of Tia's own age, who came across him weaping his heart out whilst cowering from view in an area of some dense bushes, who claims to have recognised him, "got scared" and raised the alarm.
He was eventually arrested half-curled into a foetal position, paralytic and absorbing the shoves, jeers and mob rage of a gathering crowd of engaged members of the public set on stabbing him to death with their keys, as he offered to resistance to their blows.
Merton Common is approximately 8 miles due West of New Addington - and almost right on top of the house Tia's birth mother resided in with her new family and wirey, shifty-looking partner with the illegal gambling income and big, lairy jailhouse neck tattoos pocking out from under his respectable shirt collar.
Neither one was ever questioned closely or investigated by Croydon CID.
and he was arrested and charged with murder....
while Paul Meehan, the witness who lived next door and had supported Hazell's account of Tia Sharp's exit from the house, was bailed on suspicion of having assisted an offender.
This is a fairly novel concept - the charge of assisting an offender apparently preceeded not only the eventual trial of Hazell in the Old Bailey, but also the official coroner's inquest into Tia's death;
How can the Metropolitan Police move to arrest, charge and bail Mr. Meehan on suspicion of having assisted an offender
(by proving, with his voluntary witness statement him to be Innocent of any alleged crime)
But more so even than that dread possibility - charged on suspicion of aiding an offender even before it was agreed or ascertained that a crime of any description had indeed even actually occurred....
At that point, no-one new with any certainty that she hadn't been just stung to death by killer bees ...
Much less who murdered her, how, and who was helping the killer to get away with it.....
The press coverage was difficult to comprehend, particularly the publication of pictures which added to people's distress.
There was one photograph of two girls right up against the Leppings Lane fence, their faces pressed into the wire.
Nobody knows how they escaped. They used to come to Melwood every day, looking for autographs, and that photograph upset everyone there because we knew them. After seeing that I couldn't look at the papers again.
When the Sun came out with the story about Liverpool fans being drunk and unruly, underneath a headline 'The Truth,' the reaction on Merseyside was one of complete outrage.
Newsagents stopped stocking the Sun.
People wouldn't mention its name.
They were burning copies of it.
Anyone representing the Sun was abused.
Sun reporters and photographers would lie, telling people they worked for the Liverpool Post and Echo.
There was a lot of harassment of them because of what had been written.
The Star had gone a bit strong as well but they apologised the next day.
They knew the story had no foundation. Kelvin MacKenzie, the Sun's editor, even called me up.
"How can we correct the situation" he said.
"You know that big headline – 'The Truth" I replied. "All you have to do is put 'We lied' in the same size. Then you might be all right."
Mackenzie said: "I cannot do that."
"Well,"; I replied, "I cannot help you then."
That was it. I put the phone down. Merseysiders were outraged by the Sun.
A great many still are.
I was invited to Walton jail where the prisoners were having a service for Hillsborough. Before I went in, the governor asked me to give them words of reassurance.
The inmates were very upset by what they had read. It was a creepy experience. There was silence apart from the clinking of keys, the rattle of doors sliding back. I went into the chapel and the inmates were sitting there, with hardly a murmur from anybody. Then they clapped me in. It was really appreciative applause but unnerving as well.
I remembered the governor's words and told them not to be upset by what they had read in the papers, because it wasn't true.
The Sun's allegations were disgraceful and completely groundless.
Ticketless fans try to get into every game.
Any well-supported club playing in a semi-final is going to attract ticketless fans. If handled properly, as they had been at Hillsborough a year earlier, ticketless supporters do not present a problem.
The shameful allegations intensified the anger amidst the trauma.
We spent the week consoling the bereaved and attending funerals. On the Saturday we held a service at Anfield. At six minutes past three there was a minute's silence across the country. Then everyone at Anfield sang 'You'll Never Walk Alone.'
We tied scarves between Anfield and Goodison.
We just wanted to show the unity existing on Merseyside. The following day, there was a final service on the pitch. It was really quiet, just the wind rustling the scarves tied to the crossbar.
When somebody shouted out 'We all loved you,' we all broke down.
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