Mike, why did PC Myall not start writing notes till 10am despite the fact that he arrived at 3.45am?
Was this usual?
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Carry2:- police guidelines recommend that a police officer makes up his notes in his pocketbook, as soon as is practical to do so (in general), whilst the details are fresh in his / her memory. It may well be that it took PC Myall half an hour or so, to get back to the police station, from whf after leaving there at 9:30am - but there is another way of looking at it, since, if he had made his notes up at 9:30am, whilst still at the scene, he might have recorded details about a group of men who went into whf at 9 O'clock, and did not come back out until 9:22am. My suggestion being, that by 10 am, PC Myall would know not to make any mention of these other persons at the scene, and thereby make no mention or reference to what duties they performed there, during that 22 minute period...
I agree with you, that considering that PC Myall was at the scene from as earl;y as 345am, that same morning, that it was an awful long time to wait to start writing up his notes (i.e. 10am)...
In 1985, it was known that some police officers had possession of more than one pocketbook which they were not supposed to have, and that one of these books was always rested until it was decided what should be recorded inside them, should the matter in question come to court, and they could take along that pocketbook and read evidence from it, on the pretense that it was written up at the material time, even when it was not written up until days or even weeks later...
From information I received, arising out of a police inquiry back in 1989 / 90, it turns out that police officers in South Yorkshire, were known to have several different pocketbooks, at the same time, and depending upon which case they attended court to give evidence at, depended upon which pocketbook they took along to make reference to...
I am not saying that this is what happened in this particular case, I only mention it to demonstrate that the pocketbook system is and can be open to abuse...