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Having been charged with a criminal offence, I should have been sent a copy of the tape recordings of the consequent interview. I have received only a printed document with the above heading, each page of which has been signed by PC Francis. This document should I suppose be an accurate transcription of the words recorded on two sets of cassettes during the interview. The document diverges from this idea in several important respects.
Recordings were made on two sets of tapes. At the start of each, PC Francis resorted to summary instead of transcription. PC Francis's introduction to the second tape ends:"DP agrees that he only gets on with Mr & Mrs HASTINGS. PC Francis then reiterates on DP's relationship with his neighbours who DP admits to insulting Mr & Mrs McCombie but states that they insult him back and then relates to a prior county court appearance against them when they had refused mediation regarding a dispute about an aerial and boundary wall."
It is very regrettable that Sussex Police employ in a responsible position an individual who is capable of introducing into a transcription such a combination of lies and drivel.
DP did not agree "that he only gets on with Mr & Mrs HASTINGS". The vocabulary and syntax of the second sentence is unintelligible overall, but clearly says "DP . . . states that they insult him back", when DP had certainly not stated that the McCombies insult him back: it was the McCombies who started the abusive language. Also "they" had not "refused mediation", Mrs McCombie had. Further, I did not discuss with mediators the McCombies' claim to own a wall of my garage. What PC Francis means by "boundary wall" I do not know.
On seventeen occasions in the attempt at actual transcription PC Francis claims that he cannot transcribe parts of the interview that are "inaudible", and on a further three occasions he writes "no reply heard". In places PC Francis presumably reduces my vocabulary to his own (practicable becomes practical, primarily becomes primary, and barbed wire becomes barb wire), and in other places he reduces what presumably made sense to nonsense (And I'm willing instead of And I'm unwilling or not willing, I've actually vouch for I can't actually vouch, in an attempt to disgrace them when I presumably said discourage.)
There is one more serious fault with this text, which I want to comment on in greater detail.
PC Francis read from a page on my website my comment, "I think of McCombie as the poor hen-pecked zombie and his wife as a fat slob". PC Francis said that McCombie thought that I had used the word zombie because he had had a transplant. I explained that zombie rhymes with McCombie, and I asked PC Francis if he wanted to know why I had used the term hen-pecked. When he agreed to that, I explained that when during a hearing in Eastbourne County Court, the judge had enquired about the possibility of mediation, I said that the McCombies had refused mediation. Mr McCombie asked Mrs McCombie if that was true, and she said that it was. During a later hearing with another judge, I asked whether the McCombies had relinquished their claim to own one of the walls of my garage. Mr McCombie asked Mrs McCombie whether that was the case.
I would like the tape recording of my interview to be examined to see whether PC Francis's transcription of the interview differs as seriously from the recording as my memory of the interview suggests that it does. If a significant part of the discussion of hen-pecked has been omitted, then I would suggest that this is deliberate falsification of evidence on the part of the police. Mr McCombie made a statement to the police, but it was Mrs McCombie who started the use of abusive language by referring to me as "the little shit", Mrs McCombie who took part in the painting of my fence, Mrs McCombie who was at home when I objected to the imminent positioning of an FM aerial over my property and who was rude and sarcastic when I spoke to her about it, Mrs McCombie who referred to me as "that tosser" while she was on my property to paint the McCombies' garage, and Mrs McCombie who, when she heard a squeak from the hinges of my front door when I opened it, loudly remarked, "You'd think he'd have bloody oiled it".
This is also a convenient place in which to comment again on the gross prejudice shown by Sussex police. I had remembered PC Francis saying to me before he started to write my statement that he was recording that I had been involved in an "affray". This takes on a more definite form in the text of the interview, page 30:
PC F You've been found that you're responsible for that affray, the same as the McCOMBIE's. A Could I have that in writing? PC F I've told you that already. A No, I, .... PC F I've told you that on the day. However, the fact that you ... A No. (inaudible overtalking)
PC Francis did not answer my question satisfactorily, but of course I do now have it in writing in the "Record of Interview", and wish to record here my rejection of the charge that I was responsible for an affray. I am objecting to that now, and will continue to reject it. The lies that Sussex Police have recorded about me are based on the lies of the ex-policeman Mabry, whom I consider the most shameless liar I have met in my life, and the lies of the McCombies, who became Mabry's allies in trying to drive me from my home.
P.S. I was told on 26/5/05 that this form is known to the police as a ROTI (initials that do head the form as a small sub-heading). This stands for Record of Taped Interview, so the document is a record, not a transcription. If anything, this adds weight to my demand to have copies of the tapes themselves, as a record might well provide more opportunities for inaccuracy than a transcription.
P.P.S. 03/09/05: I have now read CPS Guidance on Tape Recorded Interviews, from which it is clear that a full transcript was not called for in my case. My case is classed as "complex", as the suspect should have been "expected to plead not guilty. (This should be assumed in all cases where the suspect has not admitted the offence and its commission was not witnessed by a police officer.)" The Guidance continues, "The Record of Interview in a complex case should contain not only admissions but also the main salient points verbatim." PC Francis's attempt at this was at best incompetent and grossly biased.
27/10/05: The tapes of my interview have actually arrived, so I shall be publishing my analysis of it here.
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