6.4 Taking Statements from Witnesses, Complainants & Suspects

Taking Statements from Witnesses, Complainants and Suspects

Core Principle: Section 4 of the ministry syllabus lists "how to take a statement" as a minimum requirement alongside note-taking and report writing, because a statement is a different document with different rules. A note records what you perceived. A statement records what someone else says, in their words, and it will be read out in court and compared word for word with what they say on the stand. Take it badly and you destroy the only account of the incident that exists.

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Statement, Note, and Report Are Three Different Documents

Never merge them. A "statement" written in the guard's own phrasing and never read back or signed is worth very little, and a defence lawyer will say so.

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Before You Start: Four Preliminary Decisions

1. Separate the witnesses. Two people who discuss an event before giving statements produce one contaminated account instead of two independent ones. Separate them out of earshot immediately and take statements one at a time.
2. Take it while memory is fresh. Recall degrades fastest in the first hours. A statement taken at the scene beats one taken next shift.
3. Decide who you are talking to. A witness or complainant may be questioned freely. A suspect is a different situation entirely — see the caution rules below.
4. Set the scene. Quiet, private, seated, no interruptions, no radio traffic. Offer water. A hostile or rushed environment produces short, useless statements.

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The Free Narrative Method

The single most important interviewing technique is to let the person talk first, uninterrupted.

Stage 1 — Rapport and purpose. Identify yourself by name and role, explain that you are recording what they saw, confirm you are not a police officer, and confirm they are giving the statement voluntarily.

Stage 2 — Free narrative. Ask one open invitation: "Tell me everything you saw, from the beginning, in your own words. Take your time — I will not interrupt." Then do not interrupt. Write, or let a recorder run. Silence is your best tool; most people fill it with detail.

Stage 3 — Open probing. Expand on the narrative using the five Ws and H — who, what, where, when, why, how — with open questions: "What happened next?" "Describe the man's jacket." "Where were you standing when you heard that?"

Stage 4 — Closed clarification. Only now use closed questions to pin exact facts: times, distances, spelling of names, plate numbers.

Stage 5 — Read back and sign. Read the entire statement aloud to the witness, invite corrections, have them initial every correction and every page, and sign and date at the end.

Question Types to Avoid

• Leading questions — "He was wearing a red hoodie, wasn't he?" This plants the detail and destroys the statement's weight.
• Compound questions — "Did you see him take it and run out the north door?" You cannot tell which part they answered.
• Assumptive questions — "When he pushed you, where were you standing?" if a push has not been established.
• Opinion questions — "Do you think he looked like a shoplifter?" Opinion is not admissible from a lay witness.
• Interrupting — the most common and most damaging error of all.

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What Goes in a Written Statement

A usable statement has all of the following:

• Identification of the witness: full legal name, date of birth, home address, phone number, email, and their relationship to the site (tenant, employee, customer, passer-by).
• A voluntariness line in the witness's own hand where possible: "I am giving this statement freely and voluntarily. No threats or promises have been made to me."
• The account in the first person and the witness's own words, including slang and profanity recorded verbatim in quotation marks. Do not sanitize. The exact words spoken during a threat are often the whole case.
• Specific times, distances, lighting, sightlines, and what obstructed the view, because these are the first things cross-examination attacks.
• A truth declaration and signature: "I have read this statement consisting of ___ pages. It is true to the best of my knowledge and belief." Then the witness's signature, the date and time, and your signature as the person who took it.

Mechanics: ink only, no blank lines (rule a line through unused space), no erasures or correction fluid, single-stroke corrections initialled by the witness, and consecutive page numbering in the form "page 1 of 3."

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Suspects: Where a Guard Must Stop

This is the highest-risk part of the topic and a reliable exam item.

A security guard is not a peace officer and has no power to compel anyone to answer a question. A person is free to say nothing, and their silence is not evidence of anything.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms generally binds government actors, not private parties. But that protection collapses the moment the guard makes an arrest, because an arrest is an exercise of statutory power. Once you arrest, you must:

1. Tell the person immediately and in plain language why they are under arrest (Charter s. 10(a));
2. Advise them of the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay (Charter s. 10(b)); and
3. Deliver them to a peace officer forthwith (Criminal Code s. 494(3)).

Do not interrogate an arrested person. Do not offer inducements — "just tell me where the rest of it is and we won't call the police" — because an induced confession is inadmissible and the offer itself can amount to extortion or obstruction. If a detained person volunteers a spontaneous utterance, record it verbatim in quotation marks with the exact time, and note that it was unprompted. Then stop talking about the offence and hand the matter to police.

Exam Trap: The rule is not "never speak to a suspect." It is never question a suspect after arrest, and never offer any inducement to obtain an admission. Ordinary pre-arrest customer-service inquiry — "Good evening, can I help you find something?" — remains entirely lawful.

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Handling and Confidentiality

A statement is personal information. Store it with the incident file under lock or access control, disclose it only to those with a legitimate need — the client's authorized representative, police, or as required by law — and never photograph it on a personal phone or send it through a personal email account. The privacy obligations in Section 6.3 and the Code of Conduct duty of confidentiality in O. Reg. 363/07, s. 2(1)(h) apply to statements exactly as they apply to reports.