Saunders V United Kingdom - Facts

Facts

In R. v Saunders (1996) the accused was convicted on twelve of fifteen counts of conspiracy, false accounting and theft relating to share dealing that occurred in 1986. During the investigation the police relied on section 434(5) of the Companies Act 1985, which made it an offence to refuse to answer questions posed by Inspectors appointed by the Department of Trade and Industry, and provided that the answers to such questions would be admissible in court (unlike earlier acts (e.g. s.31 Theft Act 1968 or s.72 Supreme Court Act 1981) where the exclusion of the right to avoid self-incrimination was tied to a provision that the answers could not be used in evidence). Giving Saunders the option of either incriminating himself or "the court may punish the offender in like manner as if he had been guilty of contempt of the court." Saunders did answer questions during nine interviews from February to June 1987 and his answers were presented during his trial in 1989-90; the role of this specific evidence in securing his conviction is not clear. The legality of the statements obtained under compulsion was challenged at the trial under sections 76 and 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 during two occasions when the court was held a voir dire. During the later trial of his co-defendants the interviews were also subject to a challenge of abuse of process. None of these legal challenges succeeded.