You purport to be a lawyer. You should be able to research the material elements of the crime you posted. Failing to disclose everything you know is not sufficient to constitute an act anymore than it can constitute an act under the perverting justice statute. Failing to tell everything you know is omitting evidence not making an affirmative untrue statement with the intent of the lie throwing police off.
I disagree with this. First because she did make an untrue statement when she said he had made no further reference to his family during the evening call on 06 Aug. In fact, he had said the crime will have to be 'tonight or never' and she knew what he meant by that. That was a reference to his family. Second, while there may be no duty to speak to the police at all, whether as a witness or a suspect, once you choose to do so, you do have a duty not to mislead deliberately, which is what she did by eliding from her account of the evening call that the crime had to be 'tonight or never' and by refraining from including in her account of the early hours call that he had said 'everything is going well' a statement which completely alters the nature of his message.
The classic example of an affirmative statement that is a lie to throw police off is to provide a false alibi so police think someone can't have had the opportunity to commit a crime.
Not even simple lying will do. A lie must be material. It must be calculated to impede the investigation. A false alibi impedes the investigation by getting police to think that someone can't have done it.
What she said was plainly material. It induced the police to believe he had told her the same story he told PC West.
A classic act beyond simply speaking that constitutes impeding an investigation is helping hide or dispose of evidence.
Agreed. So what?
The only potential lie that she could have told police that could have impeded the investigation and thus actively played a role in misleading police concerns the claim he receive a phone call from Nevill and was worried about it. If she knew he received no such phone call and was simply making up that he was worried after receiving such call then she impeded justice by intentionally supporting the fiction he received a call from Nevill and was worried. That would be a material lie intended to throw police off by trying to get them to believe Jeremy was at his home receiving a call from Nevill and thus could not have been at the scene doing the killings.
On my theory of the crime she knew precisely this - that there had been no call from Nevill. Or do you think she believed, having been told by Jeremy on 06 Aug that he planned to murder his family and then discovered the next day that they had in fact been murdered, that it was all an unfortunate coincidence, that Sheila had indeed chosen that same night to bump everyone off and that Nevill had really called Jeremy in alarm?
The prosecution would need to prove that she knew the call was made up and that she knew he wasn't worried about receiving a call and agreed to lie for him about such in order to bolster his fictional alibi. Her testimony is the complete opposite of this though and Jeremy says he really did receive a call from Nevill and really was worried so obviously doesn't claim he told her to support a lie.
I am not sure my point depends on what the prosecution could or couldn't prove. I am talking about the risk she took by giving them her account. She was hardly in a position to know what they could prove. For all she knew, they might have figured out by an examination of phone records or some such that there had been no call from WHF.
Aside from the fact that the lie you allege she told is not material and can't be the basis of a charge you haven't even articulated a lie.
Why do you say it's not material?
In her September statement she reiterated that he didn't talk about his family beyond saying he had a crappy day on the tractor. What she omitted is that he told her "tonight is the night". She had no legal duty to tell police he said this to her. Failing to do so was an omission.
I disagree for the reason given above.
When one is under no legal duty to tell police anything but decides anyway to tell a lie that is aimed at
fooling the police or is under a legal duty to answer a question honestly but lies in order to fool police - like providing a false alibi- that is a statement that is made to impede justice.
In my opinion, you are wrong to think that the right to tell police nothing means that one is entitled to tell half truths that intentionally mislead.
Failing to tell police everything you know is not impeding justice as the term is used in the criminal statutes. A law that required people to inform police of all incriminatory evidence they knew about regarding any and all crimes or such person is guilty of a crime would create an affirmative duty to tell police everything you know but there is no such a statute. That was the legal scheme in the Soviet Union where you had to worry about family and friends turning you in the government over anything and the West considered such a horror thus would never enact such a scheme.
No, the duty is, when telling the police what you know about a specific crime, not to construct your account in such a way as to assist the offender. That is precisely what she did.
