Length of Police Investigations

We receive a lot of inquiries from clients who are facing police investigations that the police have called the man or they say they’re under investigation. They want to talk to them. And we always tell them first of all, you have the right to remain silent and do not come in, but now, there’s the sort of damocles hanging over their head, they’re stressed, they want to know how long it’s going to take. And that’s what I’m here to talk to you about a little bit today. I’ll give various examples in a few different type of charges. So let’s take a sexual assault for example. Standard type sexual assault involving say a rape. So in that particular case that the complainant is going to the victims going to complain to the police. The police sometimes you’re going to arrest right away after meeting the complainant, in other cases, they’re going to want to get forensic DNA, they’re going to want to interview a whole bunch of witnesses. So those types of investigations can take a long time or a short time. It just depends on the situation. Every situation is different. And we have to tell the client this and the problem, of course is there’s no statute of limitations for sexual assault. I mean someone can be charged with a sexual assault from 50 years ago, and some of these police investigations can take 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 months. That’s stretching it at six months on a sexual assault. Most sexual assaults, charges happen fairly quickly. I mean, I would say sometimes the same day, frankly, but usually within a week or two max, but I’ve seen other situations go on and on. The client says well, how do I know if it’s over? Well, you don’t. You know it’s going to eventually be over. I mean, if six months have passed, it’s probably over but every factual situation is different. If the client tells me the factual situation, I could give him a rough estimate. So I won’t get into that because if it’s a minor charge, I mean, it’s a minor allegation involving one witness, you’re going to be charged as soon as possible. If it’s serious need forensics, it’s gotta go to the centre of forensic sciences for DNA that may take two to four to five to six months, frankly. So that’s a sexual assault, a lot of stress you’re facing of course. We would hope for that client’s sake it goes away. It sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t. DUIs are fairly quick. It usually happens the same night. Impaired driving the same night. Obviously you’re charged you blow over, they do an investigation and you’re charged within 2, 3, 4 hours. There are situations where they have to take blood and send it away at the hospital or there’s other testing that needs to be done forensic testing in a DUI case, and that could take again, Centre of Forensic Sciences where they took your blood from you’re in a car accident, the hospital they don’t know whether you’re impaired not there’s a smell of alcohol on you that might take two to four months to show whether you have drugs in your system, or whether you’re over the legal limit of 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 milliliters of blood.  Again, it’s hanging over your head. We say to clients, well, two to four months is probably a range for that. I’ve seen longer but eventually it goes away no statute of limitations. So it’s a stressful situation for our clients hoping against hope that it shows no alcohol or drugs in their system. Maybe they had 3 earlier in the night and hope it’s out of their system. Same with drugs. Maybe they didn’t do drugs.  A domestic assault typically, you’re going to be charged right away. I mean, the husband makes a complaint against the wife or vice versa, the police attend, take a statement. Husband wife usually gets arrested right away. In rare circumstances the police will take their time on that maybe they want to consult with their boss or the crown if it’s is a tricky situation. The wife saying one thing, the husband’s saying another. What do I do? Sometimes both get charged right away. It’s a fight that where they both hurt each other. Fraud is another situation. On a minor fraud does allow a lot of investigation. It can be very quick can be the same day it could be a week. But I tell you we’ve represented some large scale frauds involving you know complex transactions where investigation sometimes taking one or two years. I’ve seen longer situations in that even it’s frustrating for the client because but no the police they have accountants who are trying to disassemble and analyze 1000s of pages of electronic messages, documents, you name it so you can understand they need expert’s opinions. And that can take a lot of time. But again, no statute of limitation again, a lot of stress. What do we advise the client to do in this situation? Shut up. Don’t talk to anyone don’t talk to the police don’t talk to anyone in the world because it can be used against you and a lot of people are frustrated by that because they they feel they’re innocent. They want to talk to the police that does not help.  The police you going to the police and telling them your version events is usually in most situations just going to hurt you. Because, you know, let’s take a complex fraud. I mean, this is years of activity that wasn’t a fraud you say and you’re going to forget something when you go to the police. So at your trial two years later, oh God, I wish I didn’t say that. Oh, that’s inconsistency. Yeah, I’m innocent and now you’re convicting yourself because the judge was saying this person is so inconsistent, they can’t keep their story straight.  Well, I’ll tell you, even a truthful witness can’t keep their story straight on a complex case. And you need to prepare with your lawyer for hours and hours to testify properly to keep a consistent story. And you don’t want to tell that story only once at the trial and I cover this in another video. So that’s it in a nutshell with investigations and I just want to mention that our firm law firm has offices in Toronto, Windsor, London and Kitchener and we represent people throughout in Canada we had all the cities in between. For example, you can call our Toronto sexual assault lawyers are in Toronto, driving lawyers or DUI lawyers we handle it all. And we’re here to help you.