What happens during a spiking investigation
| 1. The investigation |
| 2. Your rights during the investigation |
| 3. Referring a case to the Crown Prosecution Service |
| 4. What happens if a spiking case goes to trial |
After you report spiking, we’ll investigate to identify and find the person who spiked you.
Your formal statement
We’ll take a detailed formal statement from you. We'll ask you to tell us in your own words what happened in as much detail as possible, to help with the investigation.
Your officer in the case
We’ll assign an officer to your case with the responsibility of investigating and securing all the evidence.
The investigation might include trying to find CCTV footage or witnesses. If there is any forensic evidence, this will form part of the investigation too. For example, a glass or needle.
How we'll keep you updated
As a rule, your officer will keep you informed of how the investigation is going at least every 28 days. It may be sooner if there are any updates.
We will only be able to keep you updated if you provide your name and contact details when you report. We understand that you may prefer not to provide these details or take part in an investigation. That's fine. Your report will still help us to be better informed about spiking incidents and can help us catch those responsible. And you can always give us your details later if you change your mind.
How long it takes
At this point, it may feel like things slow down. It can take several weeks before we get the results of a forensic test, if we send your sample off to be tested.
It can also take a long time for us to build the strongest possible case. Investigations normally take weeks rather than days. In a small number of cases they can take much longer.
Support is available throughout the whole process.
The suspect
If we can identify and find the suspect, we may arrest them. We’ll base the decision on what you want, but also on what we think is best for the public.
If we have arrested a suspect, we might keep them in prison during an investigation. Or we might release them while we investigate further.
If they're released, there might be restrictions about what they can do. For example, not contacting certain people or going to certain places.
Deciding whether to charge the suspect
After investigating, we can decide to either:
- refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), if we think there may be enough evidence for them to charge the suspect, or
- close the investigation, if we don't think there is enough evidence to continue with a prosecution
The CPS is an organisation responsible for deciding which cases should be taken to trial in court. It is separate from the police and from government.