Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

150 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
(1980). One possible explanation for this omission, which is supported by other
English studies (Mitchell, 1983; Softley, 1980; Zander, 1972), is that legal advice
was infrequently requested or allowed, before the implementation of PACE in
1986. Indeed, Bottomley et al. (1991) found that the overall proportion of suspects
who received legal advice in 1984 was only 9% but it increased to 18% in
1986 and to 22% in 1987. A study by Sanders and Bridges (1989) looked at the
operation of the legal advice provisions of PACE. They found that about 25%
of suspects actually requested legal advice prior to or during interrogation. Of
those requests, about 80% were successful, which indicated that about 20% of
the suspects in the study were actually not allowed access to a solicitor. According
to the authors, their figures were very similar to those previously obtained
in a Home Office survey. Even higher figures have been reported by the Pearse
et al. (1998) study (56%), followed by the Moston, Stephenson and Williamson
(1992) study (41%) and the Phillips–Brown (1998) study (33%). The reason for
the high rate in the Pearse et al. (1998) study probably relates to the fact that
each suspect had been assessed psychologically while at the police station (see
Chapter 3). This may have encouraged some suspects to seek legal advice, or
that they were encouraged to do so by the police who were aware of the study
being conducted at their police station.
Does receiving legal advice influence the confession rate? There is evidence
that it does, although it should be pointed out that this does not appear to
have reduced the overall confession rate. In other words, even with a high
proportion of suspects being provided with legal advice, as in the studies of
Moston, Stephenson and Williamson (1992), Pearse et al. (1998) and Phillips
and Brown (1998), suspects are still confessing in more than half of all cases.
However, the presence of a legal adviser is an important predictor as to
whether or not the suspect will confess. For example, Moston, Stephenson and
Williamson (1992) found that over 50% of those who had no legal advice confessed,
in contrast with less than 30% of those who had had legal advice. These
authors concluded, on the basis of their findings, that confessions fall by about
20% once suspects have contact with a legal representative. An alternative explanation
is that the suspects who requested a solicitor were different in their
personality, or in their experiences and attitudes, than those who did not request
a solicitor, and would not have confessed even if they had not had access
to legal advice. Therefore, we may need to look closely at the type of suspect
who requests a solicitor. This may explain why, with the increased proportion
of solicitors attending interviews, the confession rate has been maintained.
Pearse et al. (1998) found that the those suspects who had legal advice were
more than or about four times less likely to confess than those who did not
receive legal advice. Phillips and Brown (1998) found almost identical results.
All these three studies are important in that they used sophisticated statistics
to control for interactions among variables.
The Strength of the Evidence
The Moston, Stephenson and Williamson (1992) study provides the strongest
support for the strength of the evidence predicting the likelihood of a confession.