There is no universal template, but it is important to be able to give some guidance about giving evidence to the police in instances of potential criminal injury. Guidance can help to relieve anxiety.
What to Tell the Police Following Brain Injury
The Police will often seek statements following on from an assault or road traffic accident. There are a few principles that may help in deciding the appropriate way in which to help the police with their enquiries:
- Police interrogation can be very unsettling for a confused patient, in particular because of the potential for the patient to misinterpret their presence as being threatening or accusatory, but also because the provision of ‘a statement’ requires considerable concentration and may lead to fatigue.
- Post Traumatic Amnesia is likely to impact on the quality of the statement provided. It is highly unlikely that the patient will be able to recall the incident. It is also possible that having heard others describing the incident at the patient’s bedside (while emerging from PTA) that the patient may instead “recall” a distorted version of events, based on overheard random excerpts (possibly modified by recall of other similar events that happened previously). This is likely to lead to a “recall” that is inaccurate and misleading, and may even be compromising for the patient.
- Therefore the approach should be to:
- Establish whether the police need information about the description of events at the time of trauma or whether they need information about the severity of injuries and the patient’s wellbeing. In the latter case a statement from a doctor should suffice and would be more informative.
- Explain the factors which may lead to errors in recall and would thus invalidate the evidence.
- Explain the negative impact that the ‘giving of evidence’ may have on the patient.
- Reassure the police that the patient may be better able to give a statement at a later date, if appropriate.