Urgent interviews under Code C 11.1 and 11.18: recording them properly

Urgent interviews are the exception to the normal safeguards. When one happens, your attendance note is often the only careful record of whether the exception was properly applied.

Urgent interviews are rare, but when I have come across one in my years as a defence solicitor (I have been attending police stations since 2001), the questions that arise later are always the same: who authorised it, on what grounds, and did the questioning stop when it should have? Those questions are answered by records made at the time.

What 11.1 and 11.18 allow

PACE Code C paragraph 11.1 says a person who has been arrested must not normally be interviewed about the offence except at a police station. The exception is where the delay would be likely to lead to interference with or harm to evidence, interference with or physical harm to other people, serious loss of or damage to property, alerting other suspects, or hindering the recovery of property. Questioning under the exception must stop once the relevant risk has been averted or the necessary questions have been put.

Paragraphs 11.18 to 11.20 deal with vulnerable people: juveniles and others who would normally need an appropriate adult, people who cannot appreciate the significance of questions because of drink, drugs or illness, and people who need an interpreter. They must not be interviewed without those safeguards unless a senior officer authorises it on the grounds in 11.1, and the interview must stop once the information needed to avert the risk has been obtained. Paragraph 11.20 requires a record of the grounds.

Code C 6.6 separately sets out the limited circumstances in which a person who has asked for legal advice may be interviewed before receiving it.

Who authorises and what must be recorded

The police must record the authority and the grounds. You should check the custody record for those entries and note what it says, whether the entry was made at the time, and whether the stated grounds match what you are told.

My note checklist

• When I was instructed, and when I learned that an urgent interview had taken place or was proposed
• Where the interview happened and at what time
• Who authorised it, their rank, and the time of authority
• The grounds recorded, word for word if possible
• Whether my client had asked for legal advice, and when
• Whether my client was vulnerable, and whether an appropriate adult or interpreter was present
• What the client says was asked, and when questioning stopped
• Any record of the interview I was shown, and anything I asked for and was refused

Raising it later

If the conditions were not met, the issue may be raised under section 78 of PACE, which allows the court to exclude evidence whose admission would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of proceedings that it ought not to be admitted. Whether that succeeds depends on the facts; what I can say from experience is that the argument is far stronger when there is a clear contemporaneous note of what the custody record said and what the client reported at the time.

For the general structure of a police station note, see LAA attendance notes explained and the PACE interview glossary entry.

Frequently asked questions

Can police interview without a solicitor in urgent cases?

Code C allows it only in limited circumstances, set out in paragraphs 6.6 and 11.1, and questioning must stop once the urgent risk has been dealt with. The authority and grounds must be recorded.

What should I record about an urgent interview?

The time and place, who authorised it and their rank, the grounds recorded on the custody record, whether legal advice had been requested, the client's vulnerability and safeguards, and when questioning stopped.

Can an urgent interview be excluded at trial?

The defence can ask the court to exclude it under section 78 of PACE. The outcome depends on the facts, and a contemporaneous note of the circumstances is important evidence.