But, now Williams is a leading light of Police Minister Saldivar's anti crime drive - and also a major defender of Police Commissioner Allen Whylie. "The Commissioner's Rules" replaced "The Judge's Rules" at the start of this year and those rules lay out to police very clearly what can and cannot be done with suspects and detainees. One of the new rules is that statements - especially confessions - must be recorded with the utmost care - so that they are not thrown out in court. That could mean recording them on camera. Williams explained:..
ACP Chester Williams, OC - Southside ED
"There is a video recording room at Queen Street Police Station where all confessions are recorded and the reason for that is to show the court with a view to satisfy the court that any confession obtained from an accused person, was obtained freely and without the use of force, threat or oppression. So we believe that that in itself will reduce the amount of allegations or if I may say reduce the amount of confessions that are being thrown out the courts, because the court believe that the confessions were obtained either by the use to force or oppression. So we welcomed that new vision."
Williams says they will be asking the US Government to assist with installing statement recording equipment on the southside as well.
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