Following a mugging, the injured party named one of the perpetrators. She then went through the named person’s Facebook friends on her own accord and found a person she claimed she recognised. When the police then showed the person’s passport picture, the injured party identified the person as the second perpetrator. Following an oral presentation from the police, a prosecutor used that as grounds for a decision to arrest the person in question. It later turned out that the injured party had pointed out the wrong person.

In its decision, the Parliamentary Ombudsman states that this kind of identification may be difficult to assess from an evidential perspective. A decision-maker considering using a person being identified in this manner as grounds for a decision regarding, for example, coercive measures, must pay attention to any potential efficiencies in the reliability of the identification of the person and ensure that he or she understands how the person was identified. The decision-maker needs to have good understanding of what the person identifying another individual has stated as part of the identification and if there are any other circumstances significant to the assessment of the credibility of the identification, among other factors. There must also be clarification as to how the identification relates to other pieces of information in the investigation.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s investigation has not provided clarity regarding which pieces of information the police presented to the prosecutor or any other revelations made during the presentation. Therefore, the Parliamentary Ombudsman lacks the sufficient documentation to make any statements regarding whether the police omitted any important circumstances during their presentation. Similarly, criticism cannot be levelled at the prosecutor for her decision to make the arrest. The prosecutor is however criticised for not documenting the circumstances that formed the basis for her decision. The Police Authority is criticised for its deficiencies in documenting the identification.