The Aftermath

Abstract

Chapter 4 traces the aftermath of the formulation of the Judges’ Rules over the period 1918–60 including their reissue and additional interpretations of 1930, 1946, and 1947. In this account the technical disarray over the meaning of the Rules is analysed and the consequences for policing practices. There is an emphasis both upon the impact upon police culture, particularly within the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) from its origins in 1878, and the emergence and intensification of various forms of police deviance and corruption. The chapter links these developments to the experiences of suspects subjected to police questioning practices alongside, in the age of capital punishment, accounts of early cases of miscarriages of justice including that of Timothy Evans for murders committed by John Reginald Christie. In the face of Home Office resistance, public pressure eventually forced the establishment of a Royal Commission on the Police (1962) and a separate review of the Judges’ Rules (1964).