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Garda questioning is where a great many cases are shaped. What is said in an interview room at 2am can decide what the case looks like a year later.
The starting point is straightforward. You do not have to answer Garda questions.
You are entitled to consult a solicitor before questioning and to have one present during it. Ask, and say it before the interview starts.
This is the part that catches people out.
In certain defined circumstances, a court can be invited to draw an inference from something you failed to mention during questioning that you later rely on in your defence. Whether that applies depends on the offence, on whether a specific form of warning was given, and on exactly how it was given.
So "say nothing" is not automatically the safe answer, and neither is "explain everything". Both are decisions, and both have consequences that depend on the detail of what is being alleged.
That is the single strongest reason to take advice before the interview rather than after it.
You are cautioned before questioning. Listen to the wording.
If you do not understand it, say so and ask for it to be explained. People routinely nod through a caution they have not followed, because they are frightened and because stopping to ask feels difficult.
Your solicitor can explain what the particular caution means for you before you answer anything.
We see the same reasons over and over:
In sexual offence investigations the detail matters enormously. Questions turn on timing, on what was said, on what was understood at the time. A well meant account given from memory, hours into a long night, can create inconsistencies that take months to deal with.
Sometimes a prepared statement is the right approach. Sometimes short factual answers. Sometimes silence on specific topics and answers on others.
Which of those fits depends on what the Gardaí actually have and what is being alleged. Nobody can tell you the right approach without knowing that, which is why advice in the station is worth more than advice read on a page.
We advise you privately first, once we know what is alleged.
In the room, we make sure you understand each question before you answer, we intervene if a question is improper or repetitive, and we stop the interview to advise you again if it moves somewhere unexpected.
We also keep our own note of what was asked and how, which matters later when the case is prepared.
If you answered questions without a solicitor, that is not the end of anything.
Write down what you were asked and what you said while it is fresh, then talk to us. What was said needs to be understood properly before the next step, and it is often less damaging than people fear.
We act for people accused of sexual offences and attend Garda stations across Ireland at any hour.
If someone is in a station now, phone rather than email.
You are not obliged to answer Garda questions. The position is not absolute: in certain defined circumstances a court can be invited to draw an inference from something you failed to mention during questioning that you later rely on in your defence.
Asking for a solicitor and taking advice before answering is normal and is not evidence of anything. Whether to answer particular questions is a decision to take with a solicitor who knows what is being alleged.
Before questioning you are cautioned. The wording matters, because in some circumstances a specific form of warning is what allows an inference to be drawn later from a failure to mention something. If you do not understand the caution, say so.
