Police Interpreters and Translators

Police and investigations

Police interpreters and translators for custody, interviews and investigations

Police work runs against the clock, and whatever is said in custody or in an interview may end up being examined in court. A poorly interpreted interview can be challenged and sometimes excluded, and a mistranslated message can send an inquiry the wrong way. We provide highly qualified interpreters and translators who specialise in working with police forces and investigation teams, and who understand how sensitive the work is.

Our interpreters and translators are trained and tested in police investigation practices and procedures such as detention, arrest and statement taking, and they are used to working in custody suites, interview rooms and prisons.

Interpreting in custody and interview

PACE Code C says that a detained person who has difficulty understanding English must have an interpreter, and must not be interviewed without one except in the urgent cases the Code allows. The Code also covers translating the essential documents in a detainee's case. Interviews are recorded, and the interpreter's words become part of the record, so the interpreter has to interpret everything that is said, in the first person, without summarising or adding explanations of their own.

If the interpretation is later challenged, the recording can be transcribed in both languages and checked line by line. That is the strongest argument for booking a qualified interpreter at the start rather than whoever is nearest.

Victims and witnesses

Under the Victims' Code, victims have the right to understand and to be understood, which includes an interpreter when they report a crime, are interviewed or give a statement. Our interpreters know police terminology and help officers communicate with victims and witnesses, including in video-recorded interviews carried out under Achieving Best Evidence guidance. For those interviews, plan with the interpreter beforehand: where they will sit, how the recording will pick up both languages, and how breaks will work.

When a witness statement is taken through an interpreter, it is usually written in English and read back to the witness in their own language, and the interpreter then gives a short statement of their own, on an MG11, describing what they did.

Translation for investigations

Our linguists handle every document with precision and care, so that the translation is faithful to the source. Investigation work includes:

• Messages and chats from phone downloads
• Recorded calls and other audio evidence
• Bilingual transcripts of interviews
• Identity documents and vehicle records
• Bank statements and financial records
• Letters of request to authorities abroad
• Witness statements and notices

Messages from a phone download are the hardest material to get right. They are short, full of slang and abbreviations, often in two languages at once, and sometimes deliberately coded. A good translator will say what a phrase normally means, flag it when it could mean something else, and leave the interpretation of the evidence to officers and the court. For recordings, a transcript in the original language with the English translation alongside lets anyone check a line against the audio. Our audio transcription page has more on that.

Qualifications and vetting

Our translators and interpreters are qualified and experienced. Almost all our interpreters are court-qualified and DBS-checked (the DBS check replaced the CRB check in 2012), and they are also NRPSI-registered, DPSI-qualified professionals. Most are native speakers with an excellent command of their working languages. If your force requires Non Police Personnel Vetting (NPPV) at a particular level, say so when you book.

Conflicts of interest

In a small language community, the interpreter may know the suspect, the victim or their family. Give us the names when you book so that we can check, and ask the interpreter to tell the officer straight away if they recognise anyone when they arrive. It is much easier to swap an interpreter before an interview than to explain afterwards why the one you used was a cousin of the witness.

Languages for police work

Police work comes in every language, and often in the middle of the night. We cover more than 350 languages and dialects, including Romanian, Polish, Albanian, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Punjabi and Urdu. For Kurdish, ask which dialect the person speaks. Sorani and Kurmanji are different enough that one interpreter will not always cover both.

Questions from officers and investigators

Can you get an interpreter to a custody suite out of hours?

We take bookings 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Where travel time is a problem, PACE allows interpretation by live link in some circumstances if the custody officer is satisfied it will not disadvantage the detainee, and our interpreters can work by video or telephone.

Do you also work for defence solicitors?

Yes. Defence work is covered on our legal sector page. To avoid the same interpreter working for both sides of a case, tell us who else is involved when you book.