My son has had a call from the police this morning saying he faces prosecution if he doesn’t turn up in court as a witness. It’s against his old boss who is up on a racial abuse/gbh charge against a taxi-driver after a night out. don’t really know the in’s and out’s but a while after the incident things came to light and it seems my son’s given statement about this not being a partial racist ‘fight’ is wrong & called and wrote to the police-station and told them he’d like to retract his statement. He hasn’t heard anything until today when he gets a call to say that he was supposed to be in court to give a defense statement and he is committing an offense if he doesn’t. he has to attend tomorrow.
He has already had threats of violence from his ex-boss when he made him his ex-boss.
Ex-boss deserves ( has earned ) the charge against him.
looking for advice

My q:

Why on earth are the defence calling what could be a hostile witness?

Ex-boss deserves ( has earned ) the charge against him.

Are you suggesting your son lies because the ex boss deserves it? Sorry it’s not really clear what you’re saying.

Anyway if I was him I’d be calling to speak to whoever is dealing with the case.

Surely if he explains all that to the defense team they won’t want him as a witness?

Go to court.

Tell the truth.

Get on with life.

Go to court.

Tell the truth.

Get on with life.

Exactly. Say that he tried to contact the police to retract the statement but heard nothing.

Certainly sounds like revenge is about to served extra cold if your boss is determined to have him as a defence witness.

My son has been told he faces prosecution if he doesn’t turn up to court.
things have come to light since the event where my son doesn’t believe his original statement rings true about his ex-boss not being a tad racist and tried to retract his statement months ago.

I don’t know if the defense are calling him as a witness..maybe they are. I think my son would rather not turn up altogether as he has already been threatened with violence when he stopped working for him. seems like he’s scared things could esculate if court goes against his ex-boss.

Is the boss pleading not guilty to the GBH or just the racially aggravated part of it?

So go to court, tell the truth, job done

EDIT: mention

he has already been threatened with violence when he stopped working for him.

He should go to court.

Tell the truth.

Is he there as a witness of the crime or a character witness?

If it’s the former then what he found after the event won’t change what happened on the day if it’s the latter then he can say ‘I now know my statement was incomplete’.

Judges look on witnesses who don;t attend very badly so make sure he goes.

From what little I know of the process, a statement is taken to be a statement of the truth as it was perceived to be by that person at that time. If “things have come to light” since, it shouldn’t affect the statement he gave at the time, unless he knew those “things” but lied about them. But under questioning he should be able to speak about what his view now is.

For goodness’ sake don’t let your son be bullied by someone, especially someone who could then get away with bullying his way out of court, and essentially go unpunished.

This is an odd one, as people would usually try to retract a statement so as NOT to incriminate somebody.

Has new info really come to light, or was your lad previously covering for his ex-boss but has now changed his mind?

You can be honest with us.

things have come to light since the event where my son doesn’t believe his original statement rings true about his ex-boss not being a tad racist and tried to retract his statement months ago.

But the case isn’t about what happened after the event, it’s about what happened at the time. Your son needs to tell the facts, that’s it. Maybe the ex-boss wasn’t a racist at the time of the incident but become one after the event (unlikely I know but possible).

I feel for your son by the way, must be a horrible situation for him, and for you as a parent.

I think he might of been slighty ‘intimidated’ by his boss at the time and this reflected in his statement. He was renting a room of of his boss, in his house, at the time. It turned out his boss was a bit of a drinker…coupled with a few mental issues and violence etc. I’m glad my son was able to get out of the whole situation. I think he gave his statement under fear of a violent reproach if he didn’t give a ‘favorable’ statement..

This is my thing , I would need a few more details to be definitive.

my guess your son gave a statement to police at the time down playing or omitting the racist bit.

this was served on the defence as a prosc witness , the defence asked for him to come as part of the prosc case to use him to undermine that element.

he is fully bound to attend , if he has received a witness summons it is contempt of court for him not to attend = potential prison . if no summons then no offence but police may attend to persuade and if he refuses judge could just issue a summons at that point.

his “retraction statement ” if he made one should be somewhere on the files as unused material .

Best advise attend court ask to speak to who ever has called him , witness service will be there to help put him in touch normally at a desk in main foyer .

Explain his position to them . Prosc will have to disclose what he says to defence , defence will not do visa versa . I would not call a reluctant defence witness if defending , I would insist on a needed reluctant prosc witness giving evidence .

At no point be an arse refusing to give evidence is contempt of court and counter productive lying is perjury both can involve trips to the cells.

if you need more info post a mobile no and i’ll ring you .

He should have been given the opportunity by police to make a second statement retracting or amending the first. He took reasonable steps to ask the police for this, and never heard anything.

There was clearly an element of coercion in his giving the first statement and he needs to attend court, tell the truth about all of this, and try to get it behind him.

Did he actually witness the incident, or is he being called just to tell the court how un-racist his former boss is?

I see why you and your son are worried but if he was honest at the time and wants to be honest now then what is the issue? Is it fear of what may happen (from the boss) when he gives his new statement in court?

It sounds like you and he need proper advice. Is it worth going to the station for a meeting as opposed to doing it over the phone?

At no point be an arse

Pretty sound advice all round…

Plenty of good advice from people more knowledgable than I on the procedural aspect, but my advice would be to go as called, and answer the questions that are put to him truthfully. If asked why the answers aren’t exactly as the statement, then say (truthfully) that pressure was exerted (whether actively or believed to be) and that he’d contacted the police previously to amend his statement.

I think my son would rather not turn up altogether as he has already been threatened with violence when he stopped working for him.

Sadly, that’s probably true but if he allows that to win then justice certainly won’t be served. I had to give evidence once in a similar case and once you’ve not been intimidated enough to not turn up (double negative – once you’ve turned up and shown intimidation isn’t working) then unless you’re dealing with proper criminal nasties (in which case the police will help there too) that aspect goes away.

Let us know how he got on.

I phoned varios courts and witnwss liason officers yesterday to get to the botton of it. It has now been adjourned until 24 July. I was, however, told that he was called by the defence to gi e evidence and that the prosecution (cps) wanted to cross examine. I also had a very long conversation with someone from these pages who knows his stuff and he has given some sound advice and explained the procedure, situation and various scenarios to me. That man, you are a star, youu know who you are and as said yesterday beers and some grub on me when I’m next up in the Dales.
Meanwhile my son contacted the police who contacted him yesterday and he has gone down to the station to amend or correct his statement. I’ll know more when he comes back.

Another STW win…..

Yep – well done for someone putting themselves out there to help another.
Fantastic stuff.
Best of luck to your son.