§ Mr. CorbettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for a report from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis on evidence that officers have been instructed to place a plastic card under the page on which hand-written statements of evidence are being recorded to frustrate any subsequent ESDA testing.
§ Mr. Peter LloydI understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that plastic cards were introduced for officers conducting surveillance operations for two main purposes; to stiffen the soft-cover notebooks used and to provide officers with procedural guidance which is printed on the card. Each note book and each page of every notebook is uniquely numbered and this ensures the integrity of the record.
Plastic cards are not used between the sheets of manual records of interviews with suspects.