§ 63. Mr. S. Silvermanasked the Attorney-General why prosecuting counsel in the case of Regina v. Roberts, an indictment for murder at Carmarthenshire Asizes, refrained from calling as witnesses two senior Scotland Yard officers who had alleged that they had obtained from the defendant, a deaf-mute, a written and signed confession of guilt, in order to prove that statement, on which alone the defendant had been committed for trial.
§ The Attorney-GeneralEvidence was given before the committing justices of interviews with the accused, the records of which were written and signed not by him but by interpreters who had great experience in communicating with deaf-mutes. At the trial, before the evidence of the two Scotland Yard officers was reached, the judge expressed the view that medical reports, obtained after the committal proceedings, raised considerable116W doubt whether the accused was capable of understanding what took place at these interviews: counsel for the Crown accordingly decided to offer no further evidence. This course was approved by the judge, who told the jury that, on the evidence then available, the proscution had acted properly in calling evidence of the interviews before the committing justices.