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Abstract
Individuals with a mental illness may be particularly vulnerable during police interviews. Assessing fitness for police interview is vital for ensuring procedural fairness. This article reports the findings of a retrospective review of 31 police interviews of mentally ill persons charged with murder (n = 18) or attempted murder (n = 13) who appeared before the Queensland Mental Health Court. Police interviews were conducted for all murder and 50% of attempted murder cases. Possible or overt mental illness symptoms were present in all interviews. Symptoms of mental illness were pervasive in 36.7% of interviews, intermittent in 43.3% of interviews and seldom in 20% of interviews. Support persons were present for 9.7% of interviews, and legal representation was not present for any interview. These findings highlight the need to enhance access to support persons during interviews. Intersectoral collaboration between mental health services, forensic medical officers, police, public guardians and the legal sector is needed.
Ethical standards
Declaration of conflicts of interest
Bobbie Clugston has declared no conflicts of interest
Bob Green has declared no conflicts of interest
Jane Phillips has declared no conflicts of interest
Zara Samaraweera has declared no conflicts of interest
Carolina Ceron has declared no conflicts of interest
Cameron Gardner has declared no conflicts of interest
Carla Meurk has declared no conflicts of interest
Ed Heffernan has declared no conflicts of interest
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Human Research Ethics Committee (no. HREC/15/QRBW/504) and Queensland Police Service research committee (approval date 13 June 2016), and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
A waiver of consent was approved under Queensland’s Public Health Act, 2005. (Public Health Act Approval number RD006043).
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Simon Bronitt for his helpful comments on the draft manuscript. The authors acknowledge the assistance of the Queensland Police Service (QPS) in the conduct of the research presented. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of QPS, and any errors of omission or commission are the responsibility of the author/s.
Notes
Notes
1 Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities Act 2002 (NSW), Police Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2000 (Qld), Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld), Summary Offences) Act 1953 (SA), Criminal Law Detention and Interrogation Act 1995 (Tas), Crimes Act 1958 (Vic), Criminal Investigation Act 2006 (WA).
2 A person may be found of unsound mind under the repealed Queensland Mental Health Act 2000. The legal test for insanity is defined under s. 27 of the Criminal Code Act 1899: ‘A person is not criminally responsible for an act or omission if at the time of doing the act or making the omission the person is in such a state of mental disease or natural mental infirmity as to deprive the person of capacity to understand what the person is doing, or of capacity to control the person’s actions, or of capacity to know the person ought not do the act or make the omission’.