H. M. Advocate v Rigg
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 02 October 1945 |
| Docket Number | No. 1. |
| Date | 02 October 1945 |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
HIGH COURT.
Lord Justice-Clerk.
Evidence—Competency—Statement by panel—Statement to police by youth subsequently charged with murder—Evidence as to statement disallowed as in circumstances unfair to panel—Observations deprecating growing practice of tendering statements as evidence.
A lad of seventeen reported to the police one afternoon that about 3p.m. he had found the body of a girl in an air raid shelter. She was eight years of age and had been brutally murdered on the preceding day. He returned to the shelter with an officer, who took a statement from him. The lad thereafter went to a cinema where he was employed, and was later taken back to the police office by a superintendent to whom, about 7 p.m., he made another statement, a precognition extending to some 400 words, which contained nothing of an incriminating nature. The superintendent left the office to pursue his investigations, and the lad remained. About 9p.m. the superintendent returned, and, after indicating to the lad that his investigations had been unsuccessful, he suggested that they might go over the statement again to see if anything had been omitted. The lad then said, "Take this. I will tell you what happened." He was cautioned and was told that his parents, or a relative, or a lawyer might be present, but he declined to have anyone. He then made a statement extending to upwards of 700 words which was in substance a precognition giving a detailed account of his movements on that and the preceding day. His condition at different times after the discovery was described by different persons as excited, partially collapsed, trembling and shuddering.
At his subsequent trial on a charge of assaulting and murdering the girl, the Lord Justice-Clerk (Cooper) refused to admit evidence regarding the last statement, holding that, in the circumstances, it could not be regarded as a spontaneous and voluntary statement, and that its admission would be unfair to the accused.H. M. Advocate v. Aitken, 1926 J. C. 83,followed.
Observed: "I have viewed with growing uneasiness and distaste the frequency with which in recent years there have been tendered in support of prosecutions alleged voluntary statements said to have been made to the police by persons charged, then or subsequently, with grave crime."
Robert Carmichael Rigg Was tried in the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh on 2nd October 1945 before the Lord Justice-Clerk and a jury on a charge of indecently assaulting and murdering a girl, aged eight, in an air raid shelter in Edinburgh on 11th July 1945.
The evidence was...
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