Crimes (Forensic Procedures) Act 2000 - NSW Ombudsman - NSW ...

In our 2004 report on the DNA sampling of serious indictable offenders, we also identified significant problems
with the provision of information about forensic procedures, and recommended that the Attorney General prepare
a plain English version of the information that is required to be provided under the Act, which could be prescribed
by the regulations or included in a Schedule to the Act. 380 We understand that this recommendation is under
consideration. 381
Consistent with those earlier findings, we have again found in this review that the information provided to suspects
and volunteers is seriously inadequate, in particular because it is far too complex. We received many submissions
which strongly advocated the development of a plain English version of the information which is provided. 382 Legal Aid
NSW commented:
The Act is premised upon informed consent by suspects and volunteers... Despite the current legislative
provisions, in general our clients do not sufficiently understand the nature of the procedure and their option not
to consent, and therefore they are not giving informed consent. 383
Police officers are also extremely critical of the information they provide to suspects and volunteers. In every
command we audited, officers criticised the information sheet for being too long and too difficult to understand.
Similar comments were made in submissions and survey responses we received. For example:
You need a bottle of water to finish reading it. 384
You need a law degree to follow it. 385
There’s so much information, the person is bamboozled. It should be much simpler. 386
Some suspects aren’t very well educated and it goes straight over their heads. You give them all the information,
but most of it they don’t need. 387
They inevitably don’t understand 99% of what is read to them, or just switch off and don’t listen. 388
You read the information sheet, and guaranteed, they don’t understand it. And [when asked whether they
understand] they say yes. 389
When you read the three-page information sheet to the [suspect] it is confusing to nearly every one of them. At
the end you ask them, ‘Do you understand that’ They all say yes, which in my opinion is untrue. 390
It is the most confusing document and serves little purpose in assisting suspects making an informed decision...
It is long, convoluted and of little value to the majority of persons being tested. 391
Some police officers commented that even they do not understand the information. For example:
I’ve read it a number of times and I don’t understand it. And I’m not the village idiot. 392
Nobody’s understanding it, police or suspect... It’s going to mean nothing to them. 393
I don’t even understand it, let alone the bad guy which is ironic as the last question is ‘Do you understand
this’ They always answer yes because they are bored senseless by us reading out these sheets of irrelevant
information. 394
When you ask the suspect if they understand what has just been read out to them, I generally get a blank look
from the suspect (or they have fallen nearly asleep). Luckily, I have not had any state that they do not understand
it because I have problems getting my own head around it. 395
I know I’ve mentioned it but I will keep mentioning it. It is way too long. Too much information that the suspect
would not understand, although at the end we ask them if they understood it. It’s obvious they didn’t because
some of the police don’t understand it. 396
The Police Association of NSW shares this view:
Many police officers themselves do not fully understand all the information associated with the Information
Sheet. If a suspect answered ‘no’ to the question, ‘Do you understand’, an explanation would be very difficult,
time consuming and require more knowledge than is possessed by the average police officer. 397
Many officers were of the view that the information sheet contained information which simply was not relevant. For
example, it refers to various pieces of legislation, including the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1987 and the
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NSW Ombudsman
DNA sampling and other forensic procedures conducted on suspects and volunteers under the Crimes (Forensic Procedures) Act 2000