Dear Colleague
First of all can I wish everyone a very Happy New Year!
You will recall that I arranged to meet with Musgrave Street PSNI regarding problems experienced by practitioners with delays in its custody suite. I had a very productive meeting with DCI Haslett, Inspector King and Sergeant Dalzell and a further meeting is arranged for next month. I was able to provide the police with specific incidents of delays; delays which they themselves conceded were unacceptable.
Sergeant Dalzell has overall responsibility for “gatekeepers”. He is also introducing new methods of processing the interviewing of detained persons with a dedicated staff of 10 interviewers operating throughout the day; a board system will operate with interviewing slots allocated to detained persons throughout the day and he hopes that this will reduce some of the delays that members have experienced.
I impressed upon them that a major problem is the lack of direct contact with a custody sergeant and the poor communication between CDOs and ourselves. This will be reviewed.
The police wanted to bring a number of specific matters to the attention of the profession :-
- They want to work with us; and so a user group is being considered.
- The new “board system” will involve solicitors being regularly contacted and given a particular time in which an interview will commence. Solicitors must attend at the agreed time. If solicitors are more than 30 minutes late then they will lose their place in the queue and that slot will be reallocated
- The Police do not want solicitors attending the custody suite unannounced. This will lead to further delay and will add to some of the problems that members have complained of. Apparently some solicitors attend the custody suite without being told that an interview is scheduled to start and this can lead to problems with the running of the allocated slot system.
The police were genuinely surprised that some practitioners had experienced delays as reported of up to two hours between conclusion of interview and decision whether to charge/report/bail. Equally they now accept that work is required with their CDOs. However Sergeant Dalzell in particular was confident that this new system which is being rolled out will streamline the custody process, reduce delays and improve efficiency. Time will tell!
I would appreciate feedback and/or comment on members’ experiences in Musgrave Street Custody Suite during this month of January. Now that the problem has been highlighted and police have publicised their streamlining strategy I would expect improvements to be very visible.
Please let me know of your experience over these next few weeks so that this can be highlighted at my next meeting with police.
There are no doubt a range of issues which affect practitioners using Musgrave Street Custody Suite and I intend to bring these to the forefront during subsequent discussions/meetings.
Many thanks
Paul Dougan
Chairman
Belfast Solicitors’ Association