Identification Evidence and Code D Procedure: Introduction

Identification evidence answers a deceptively simple question: is this the person the witness saw? A witness may be honest, confident and persuasive but mistaken. The safeguards therefore test memory rather than ask the police to confirm their existing theory. A fair identification procedure is valuable both when it produces a selection and when the witness selects someone else or no one.

This chapter follows Police-Station Rights, Detention and Lawful Interview. Carry forward the distinctions between a voluntary suspect and a detainee, the separate roles of solicitor and appropriate adult, and the need to record what actually happened. Here the focus is visual identification: choosing and conducting the correct procedure, preserving its history, and explaining its later use at trial. Taking fingerprints or DNA samples involves different powers and is not an eye-witness identification procedure.

Four terms organise the analysis. Procedure means the safeguards police must follow when obtaining the evidence. Admissibility means whether the court receives the evidence, including whether it should be excluded for unfairness. Sufficiency asks whether the prosecution evidence is capable of supporting a lawful conviction, rather than whether the defendant should have to repair a missing prosecution case. Weight is the persuasive value of evidence which the court has admitted. The fact-finder is the jury in an ordinary Crown Court trial, or the magistrates or District Judge trying a case without a jury. Those questions are connected but not interchangeable.

The governing identification code here is PACE Code D 2023 for England and Wales, effective for identification procedures carried out after 00:00 on 20 December 2023. Its annexes form part of the Code; its separately labelled Notes for Guidance explain practice but are not themselves provisions of the Code. Read the Code alongside PACE sections 67 and 78 and the judicial safeguards explained in R v ForbesKey caseR v Forbes[2001] 1 AC 473 and R v TurnbullKey caseR v Turnbull[1977] QB 224. The Code regulates police procedure; the court remains responsible for fair admission and a safe assessment of the evidence. The Crown Court Compendium supplies practical judicial guidance, not a replacement for the Code, statute or judgments.