Making a Police Statement

A statement given by a witness, including a victim, is referred to as a witness statement. The statement describes what they saw or believe they saw. The statement will include the witness's name, address and contact number, the time and location of the incident, a description of the people involved in the alleged crime and an explanation of what they saw.

The accused statement contains the same information but from the perspective of the person who was charged or is under investigation for a crime. Again, anything you say can be used against you.

Though you may have been identified as a perpetrator in a witness statement, there is compelling evidence that eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of a wrongful conviction.

The U.S. Innocence Project estimates that eyewitness error was a contributing cause in 70 percent of the 356 wrongfully convicted accused exonerated by DNA evidence in that country. The Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) acknowledges that "even the most well-meaning and confident eyewitness can be mistaken. And the American Psychological Association estimates that one in three eyewitnesses make an erroneous identification."

The PPSC adds, quoting a unanimous Ontario Court of Appeal judgment, that "flawed identification procedures can contribute to miscarriages of justice and the importance of taking great care in conducting those procedures."

If you have been identified as the perpetrator of a crime in a witness statement, your defence lawyer may be able to show how unreliable that identification is.