Just before you go on, members of the jury, I have something I want to say about the record of interview that you've just heard. In a moment I'm assuming it's going to be tendered and you'll be able to take that with you, if it hasn't already, into the jury room and there will be a machine given to you so you can play it over and over again if you wish. But I just want to say something about that record of interview. In particular, I want to say something about some of the answers that you heard given by the accused to questions asked of him by police, especially the "No comment" answers or the, "I'm not prepared to answer the question", or, "I don't want to answer the question", those sorts of responses.
Well, I must tell you that those answers follow on from him being specifically told by the police, on several occasions that I've noted when I looked through it, and you would have heard that very early in the record of interview and repeated at the start of each interview and even more than that, that he was not obliged to say or do anything during that interview.
And in fact he was as I recall it reminded of that on three occasions that I could count throughout that interview if not more. It's important that you understand as a matter of law it's an accused person's right not to answer questions put to him, you don't have to. And he was properly warned of his right in law to refuse to say anything if he wanted to.
So I direct you as a matter of law, and it is a direction of law and this is binding on you, that you may not use his silence or a refusal to answer questions as any form of implied admission of guilt, you can't do that. Refusal or silence doesn't strengthen the Crown case at all because it's his right. You're not permitted to infer that the accused has admitted his guilt in any way at all from the fact that he expressed his right to not answer questions in the way he did. He's entitled not to answer. Just for your own benefit, the same would apply to you or I if we were being questioned, you've got the right not to answer.
By themselves those questions and answers are irrelevant. While you may have regard to all the answers in that interview given by the accused in their totality, you must not draw an inference adverse to him of guilt based on the answers of "No comment" or "I don't want to answer" or "I prefer not to answer that", that type of answer. Because as I have said now several times, and I'm repeating it because it is a direction of law, it's his right to decline to answer.
Common sense would tell you that he can't be given that option then when he takes it have any inference drawn against him for taking the option that was offered and that he's entitled to, you can't do that. So quite apart from common sense and fairness which I'm sure you would understand, it's also against the law for you to use it in that way. So I repeat, and this is a direction of law, the accused's answers to the questions that he did answer should be considered as a whole in the context of those he also didn't answer, so it's the whole thing, the global thing that you look at.
You can look and assess the whole of the record of interview in that way but I direct you, and as I've said this is a direction of law and you are bound by it, you must not use his refusal or not wanting to answer questions such as "No comment" or "I don't want to answer that" or "I'm not prepared to answer that', to infer his guilt because of those answers. He had that right, OK?