The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 provide sufficient Essay

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 provide sufficient safeguards to prevent miscarriages of justice. Critically discuss whether this statement is true in relation to eyewitness testimony - Essay Example What this code does is to therefore try and safeguard the law and prevent any miscarriages of the law (Ozin, Norton and Spivey, 2006, pg. 125). A miscarriage of justice in this case refers to any punishment or even conviction of an individual for a crime that he or she did not commit (Samuels, 2014, pg. 1790). Eyewitness evidence is a very helpful source of evidence in determination of any case. However it is also a very fragile form of evidence as it is subjected to psychological evaluation by both the prosecution and defence team and this may test the credibility. The eyewitnesses are usually shaken by the different approaches taken by the two legal teams some of which are unexpected and this leads to them making mistakes or omitting important facts that lead to many juries discounting the eyewitness testimonies (Bromby, MacMillan and McKellar, 2007, pg. 340). The testimony of eyewitnesses is first of all collected by police officers once the crime is committed and recorded according to Code D of PACE. The code provides specific methods of collecting the testimony and identifying suspects which must be followed to the letter. This however is not exactly the case (Samuels, 2007, pg. 3). There are rogue police officers and others who are not so keen to follow to the letter the code according to the Act. Lack of following these specified methods and procedures is what leads to miscarriages of justice as the wrong suspects are identified and convicted of a crime they did not commit (Garrett, 2011, pg. 287). What usually happens is that the police officers lead the eye witness to a suspect by providing several descriptions which confuses the eyewitness and him or she agrees. This especially happens in cased where there is no suspect in custody already where facial identification can be made by the eye witness or even in cases