Hi all,

Quick recap, my house was raided by the police in November 2020 and my devices seized, but I was not arrested or interviewed and had very limited contact with the police.

Finally, this week I had an email from the new DCI in charge of my case, who has informed me all my devices have been now examined, she is writing a repot, and that I will be called in for an interview under caution first week of November.

I have a solicitor who specialises in sexual offences who will be accompanying me.
The police are likely to recover several hundred Category C and B CSA materials.
I intend to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity.
I have undertaken about 175 hours of therapy since the raid, focused around my offending behaviour.

I will be meeting with my solicitor to go over things before the interview, but I wondered if any members had any advice of what to expect? I have never even been in a police station before, let alone been interviewed.

Hi
I wish you luck but be prepared for them to push to find off you what they haven't found themselves.
I was completely 100% honest and informed them of things they didn't know that were mitigating for me. They maneuverer their case around those points and actually found reasons why they didn't follow up on certain points: blackmail emails.

Best discuss all your points with your solicitor before you speak to the Police. saying that my solicitor didn't follow up on mitigation points lol

In the end I felt better being open as it help me personally; though not my punishment.



Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

I'm not legally qualified to offer advice. However....... speaking from lived experience, my suggestion is to say "no comment" to everything.

I'm sure you've been cooperative during the investigation and it's felt like a whirlwind, many of us can relate to that and I've been in the exact position you are in now (I just didn't know this forum existed!). To offer some clarity, keep in mind you can only be charged against what they've found. No words in a police interview can improve that. I understand the feeling that saying no comment might feel as if you're not being cooperative, but I can assure you it is not, it's for your own protection. The actions you've taken with therapy etc will be noted in your mitigation in court along with your remorse and contrition, your legal rep will be able to speak to you more about that later. For now, I'd suggest using the police interview to fact-find about what they've found and really listen to what they say and, providing there isn't a huge error somewhere, leave it at that. The journey is relentless and I can only say stay strong.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

It's important to remember, that pleading guilty at the first opportunity and admitting something in a police interview, are not the same thing. You can say nothing in the interview and still plead guilty at the first court appearance and it won't be held against you, that you went 'no comment' in the interview. But once you admit to something in the interview, it's going to be much harder to plead not guilty later on. The 'first opportunity', for these purposes, is your first court appearance, and not the police interview.

The interview itself will be calm and polite. They won't shout at you, or bully you, like they do in the movies and TV shows, because everything is being recorded. If anything, they will take the opposite approach and be very friendly, in order to persuade you to give away more than you intended. Don't fall for any suggestions that they will go easier on you if you co-operate, because its not true. They will prosecute, if they possibly can and they aren't interested in apologies, or hard luck stories, just evidence. Save your apologies and remorse, for the courtroom, because that's when it will be taken into consideration. Same goes for therapy. You can use that to mitigate your sentence, but it won't affect their decision to prosecute, unless you have a serious and diagnosed, mental health condition, in which case, make your solicitor aware.  At this stage, you don't know what you are going to be charged with, so that's the first thing to find out. Then consider any possible defences. Your solicitor will advise you, but for images these are the things to think about.

1. Are the images actually indecent?
2. Can it be proven you downloaded the images?
3. Is it a computer or device used by other people?
4. Was it sent to you without your knowledge?
5. Did you know the images were there? 
6. Were they downloaded accidentally?
7. Did you only view them by accident? 
8. Were the images deleted quickly? 
9. Can you prove the images are no longer accessible?
10. Can the prosecution prove you knew the images were on the device?
11. Can I avoid a conviction and get an caution?

Again, not qualified to offer legal advice, but check this with your solicitor. I'm sure I read somewhere that you can prepare a statement to be read out during the interview. You can make it clear that you will be pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, and on that basis you might not have to answer their questions. You could still go "no comment" if they still insist on asking questions.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

Sorry AB, I'm not with you in this case. At this point he has not even been arrested, it isn't clear that switchr has done anything wrong. To say: "I'll plead guilty" does nothing but leave yourself vulnerable, police could then ask: "Plead guilty to what?" and then go on a fishing expedition. The police wouldn't want to be seen to miss anything either. So to put yourself in a position, for example, to admit one single Cat B image, if they've only found Cat C images, that admission cannot be taken back afterward.
In cases where there's an opportunity to challenge the evidence then perhaps a statement could be appropriate, for example, if there was a fight, you could argue "they said this, they said that and then..."
But usually for indecent images cases, for example, charges will be brought against the evidence obtained in the raid and you can't deny that evidence exists and this is why, by the time these cases come to court, I've yet to see a single positive outcome with a denial of the charges. In a sense, the interview is more important than the court proceedings.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

If they find anything, then absolutely plead guilty when at the plea hearing... but never ever admit anything to the police in an interview. 

If it helps, speak with your solicitor. I drew up a statement which we decided to not present after a no comment interview. They were clearly fishing. Once you are past the you are not looking at a caution stage, do not help them. Their ability to twist even quite innocent comments to sound menacing is quite remarkable.

Thanks everyone - this has been really enlightening and valuable information. I will very carefully plan what to say, and will speak to my solicitor. Will update once the interview has happened.

It's not about doing wrong, it's about the strict liability of indecent images being on your computer. Unless you can prove that someone else put them there, you're in the frame. That's what happened to one of my cell-mates. Even so, if they interview someone after finding those images, making a statement might be a way to avoid a lengthy interview. You don't have to go into detail about anything, which is the point of choosing to make a statement instead of asking questions. If the evidence is found, and if there is no way to establish innocence (the burden of proof is on the suspect), then indicating a guilty plea would be a way to oil the wheels. If they find nothing, or if you can prove you didn't put them there, then don't do that.


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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

I understand your point but I'd warn that these early stages of the process go further than guilty/not guilty because there's obviously an interest in the method of offending, length of time of offending etc, in other words, aggravating factors that could seriously affect sentencing.
I'll give another example from my own experience as to why I would advise against statements. I did a voluntary interview on the day of the raid. I was advised to 'no comment' everything until after they examined my devices, which I did. During the voluntary interview, they did a bit of fishing as they mentioned something to do with Australia. To this day, I've no clue about how viewing is linked to Australia but I no commented it. In my second interview, after they'd examined my devices, Australia wasn't even mentioned (I even wanted to ask after the recorder was switched off: "What was that thing about Australia all about?" because I was baffled by it, but I refrained). So if I'd just said in a statement during the first interview (which is what the OP said they'll be having as they didn't mention having a voluntary interview) that "I'll just plead guilty... etc" I could potentially be admitting, not necessarily another charge, but an aggravating factor which could be used against me, even though in my case, whatever the Australia thing was, wasn't actually true.
If I'd inadvertently accepted the Australia thing as part of a vague "I'll plead guilty," statement, and it was then mentioned in court then I would have to respond to it... and then if my defence was: "I've no clue about Australia", it just sounds ambiguous and weak. As it turns out, by saying no comment, it disappeared and certainly wasn't mentioned in court.
As many people here have shared, words are very often twisted in these cases and the last thing you want to do is increase any chance of aggravating factors at this stage. This is why I said 'really listen to what they say' and why I caveated with 'providing there isn't a huge error somewhere', I'd say mitigation can wait for court so it can be heard at the most crucial time with no ambiguity.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.