All officers I dealt with started by saying 'when can you get here' as if nothing had happened. I was then told by DDO's and CO's that the only facility for 'consultation' was the phone on the wall in the custody suite, and that they 'wouldn't listen in'..so that's all right then! The very helpful OIC in my first case told me there are social distancing markers in the custody suite but no measures at all anywhere else. Officers just seem to think the risk is an occupational hazard. 
After a conversation with the custody officer, who said that they had no facility to provide any private consultation, 'unlike other stations', as far as he was concerned there was ' no real risk' and if I was not attending in person, he would take that as a refusal to do the job, he did, eventually, agree to discuss it with the OIC and get back to me. He didn't, but I was finally able to get custody record and disclosure emailed to me, have a private consultation with clients and engage in interviews by hands free phone. I had particularly vulnerable and difficult clients but the officers in the cases were cooperative and it worked as well as it could have in the circumstances. This was all just before the protocol. 
Incidentally, the AA seemed perfectly happy to attend in person and didn't seem to have any concerns. So in one interview room there were 2 officers, client and an AA. No degree of social distancing could have been possible at all.
Agree with Brian, most stressful duty I have done in a long time! Hopefully, things are slowly improving at police stations.
Incidentally, as a freelancer, I just wanted to say that, apart from duties, I am not attending court or police stations until the end of April and will review the situation then. I am happy to cover court duties if anyone needs me, and the rate will be 50% as normal, not inflated! 
Bridget 



Sent from my iPad 

On 3 Apr 2020, at 13:05, Tony Marshall <tony@alexander-johnson.co.uk> wrote:

That sounds positive Linda and thanks for the update

Tony Marshall
Solicitor
Alexander Johnson
Sent from my iPhone

On 3 Apr 2020, at 13:03, Linda Barker (via members list) <members@mail.lccsa.org.uk> wrote:

 I had a completely different experience at Acton, only 1 officer was surprised that I wouldn’t attend, but was still happy to send disclosure by email.

I had 4 , got 4 lots of disclosure, all officers were willing to take their phones in to facilitate me listening in if I insisted ( tho they had to check with custody) to put me on speaker phone, all were helpful. I had custody records etc emailed over , officers mobile nos. Got slightly confused as was dealing with them all at the same time do important to write as much down as poss and have laptop in front of you do you can read out disclosure. Difficult to do everything all on the phone which is what I started doing.

All went very smoothly, yes will take a long time to write up notes but part of the course

I’m on Uxbridge today, let’s see if that runs as smoothly as there is a lack of signal there!

Linda

Linda Barker
Crime Solicitor
DDI: 02031141295
Fax: 020 3119 0295
Branch: Harrow

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On 3 Apr 2020, at 11:40, BRIAN ALDRED <baldred@hotmail.com> wrote:


Dear All,

I thought I would share my experience as duty 1500-2300 yesterday so that others might be prepared and things might improve:

Yesterday was without doubt the most stressful duty slot I have ever done: It started with the police demanding to know if I was going to attend before they would even give me the basics from the custody record (as I was told there was a directive to do so from management, albeit that this before the Protocol came out) and went downhill from there for 9 continuous hours on the phone or on hold on the phone or listening to a phone ring, emailing, typing notes, reading and re-reading Protocols. And it will be lunchtime today before I have filled in all the notes of the stuff I simply did not have time to write down at the time. Not pleasant.

And simply not worth it either. At the end of the day, I eventually persuaded the police to release all four of my clients without interview because that was the right thing to do - one charged and bailed without interview for obstructing a negative drugs search and the other three RUI'd for the grave crimes of drugs possession (personal), fraud (committed ages ago) and possessing IIOC (on the basis of the client mentioning child porn when brought into custody for other matters which were rightly NFA'd as they were in the words of the custody sergeant "complete tosh"). I never even got to speak to two of them because they needed interpreters and there was no way to set that up.

So, it would seem that until facilities are actually in place to do video interviews, and until the police have actually filtered the advice down to the troops on the ground, the Protocol is no more than a poisoned chalice because the only end result can be that you get nothing more than a telephone advice fee for hours of bashing your head against various walls.

Of course, this experience may be because there are no facilities in Islington PS or a particular unwillingness to see sense on the part of individual officers (although credit is due to the late turn Sgt. who took a much more pragmatic view than his predecessors) but I think it would be helpful if members would report the stations where it is working and where it is not. For the moment, I report that at Islington it absolutely is not.

Stay safe,

Brian Aldred

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