Johnnny2007 is in favour of police having the freedom to knock suspects about to get a conviction.
Here's a description of one example where torture, brutality and false confessions were used so that guilty criminals escaped investigation, and random innocents were sentenced instead.
This practice led to convictions, but not to justice.
"Each man was ordered to change his clothes. A search of X's possessions revealed several cards printed in reference to Y. Upon discovering these cards, two officers led X into an adjacent room, where he was repeatedly punched, kicked and, later, burned with a lit cigarette by three officers as his arms were restrained by the two policemen who had escorted him into the room. Similar assaults were committed upon A, B, C and, to a lesser degree, D, the officers who administered these beatings took great care to avoid marking the men's faces.
At 12:55 on the afternoon of 22 November, while detained at z police station, X signed a confession admitting his involvement in the y bombings. This confession was extracted after X had been subjected to extreme physical and psychological abuse, which included repeated kicking in the stomach, head and legs, dragging by the hair, and the stretching of his scrotum.
False confessions
The five men were transferred to the custody of the B squad on the afternoon of 22 November. At 22:45 that evening, C was arrested at his home in x and driven to y police station, where he was briefly questioned before being detained in a cell overnight, but intentionally denied sleep. The same evening D was arrested, the homes of all six men were extensively—and unsuccessfully—searched for explosives and explosive material.
Following their transfer to the custody of the B Squad, three other members of the W(X, Y and Z) signed false confessions on 23 November. In these three further false statements obtained by the B Squad, X, Y and Z each falsely claimed to be members of the M; to have conspired with J to cause explosions prior to his death; and to have planted the bombs at the V and the U. As had been the case with X while detained at L police station, the three men later claimed that, before and during their transfer to G, officers had coerced them into signing these confessions through severe physical, psychological and emotional abuse. This mistreatment included beatings, deprivation of food and sleep, being subject to mock executions, intimidation, being burned with lit cigarettes, and being forced to stand or squat in various stress positions. In addition, each man had heard threats directed against their families. F and G both claimed they had been subject to the same mistreatment, and although both men had refused to sign false confessions, police later claimed that both men had verbally confessed their guilt. On 24 November, each man was initially charged with the murder of D, who had been killed in the K explosion. All six were remanded in custody at P Prison, and they were only assigned solicitors the following day.
Inside P Prison, all six men were subject to the same mistreatment at the hands of prison officers as they had endured at the hands of police, with one of the men losing four teeth in one assault. At a further court hearing on 28 November, each man was observed to have extensive facial injuries; an examination by a prison doctor revealed each man had received extensive injuries not only to their faces, but across their bodies. (Following an independent investigation into this mistreatment, the prosecution authority recommended that 14 prison warders be charged with assault. These men were suspended from duty in December nnn; all 14 were found not guilty of 90 separate charges of misconduct and assault on 15 July ppp."
