LAWYER ANDREW PILGRIM is appealing to police officers to treat witnesses with respect and to trust them when they volunteer information about criminal activity.
Pilgrim, who is also president of the Bar Association, said that if witnesses felt happy interacting with the police they would be willing to come forward.
Pilgrim said winning the trust of witnesses was even more important now “in the context [of] this modern era where people are telling everybody ‘don’t go and tell the police anything let [them] go and do their work’ and it is causing a divide between public and police which none of us want. All of us want the police and public to get along well.”
If witnesses were not treated well the justice system would be “in bare trouble”, he said during a media briefing last Friday.
“The people who commit crime [will] not be coming before the court and witnesses [will] just lose confidence in the police and just say they are not bothering.
