It's really a matter for you and your Solicitor to decide but yes in the case where possession can be proven and it's a personal quantity, you may be able to escape going to court by accepting a written caution.I've posted on boards before about this as there seems to be a belief that accepting a package containing controlled drugs doesn't amount to possession - sadly under UK law the presumption is that it does, unless the defendant can demonstrate they were unaware of the contents. A rather fine line to walk legally and as I explained before my Barrister friend said she simply told her client to stop talking nonsense when he tried to instruct her to form a defence on these grounds.Having said this, there is no incentive for you to talk to the Police at any stage in the proceedings. As I mentioned your legal adviser will consult with you before the interview commences and will inform you as to whether the Police have made a grounded allegation. Even in cases of simple possession of controlled drugs your cooperation at an early stage may put you at a disadvantage. This is due to what is called "confirmation bias" in law enforcement circles i.e the officer has made up their mind as to your involvement in a crime before the interview commences. This is not the model of interviewing they are supposed to follow but the natural state of our minds is to practise a form of "inner editing" whereby we simply hear the facts which reinforce our preconceptions and leave the rest.The interviewing officer is under no obligation to tell your Solicitor everything however. They may say for instance that drugs were found in the vicinity of your home.At this stage a good Solicitor will ask more probing questions such as where the drugs were found in relation to your home, were your fingerprints found upon the package, do you share the property with anyone else and so on. As I said, there's no requirement for the Police to make a full disclosure of evidence at this stage - a shrewd interviewer will try to use evidence tactically by revealing enough to try to convince your legal adviser they have what is called a "grounded allegation" i.e reason to believe you are guilty of this crime but not enough so that they cannot later reveal evidence as an ambush manoeuvre to make you seem dishonest.The advantage to the Police in doing this is that if they fail to disclose enough evidence the Solicitor has a strong case for advising their client to remain silent and succesfully convincing the court that you, their client, didn't answer questions as no significant disclosure of evidence against you was made. It's win-win from your perspective in this case as remaining silent forces the Police to reveal their hand. Of course you were mentioning instances where the suspect is guilty of an offence. Cooperation is by no means a guarantee of more lenient treatment at this stage.An excellent case in point occurred to a young couple near where I live who raided a number of boats at various harbours to steal their petrol, when they then sold to friends or traded for beer. By the time they were caught, several boat owners had been interviewed and had been asked to say how much petrol had been stolen and one of the Police officers had the presence of mind to measure the empty fuel canisters from which the petrol had been stolen.Upon interview, the young man who had actually siphoned off the petrol made a full and frank confession when the question was put to him and signed a confession statement right away. Although he declined a Solicitor, he was later assigned one for the court case, who very quickly spotted there was a huge difference between the capacity of the fuel canisters and the amount of petrol the boat owners said had been stolen - his client had admitted to stealing around 300 MORE of goods than he actually had! So much for making a clean breast of things.Having said this I have also seen the transcript of a Police Interview with an Arts and Design student who was arrested after his backpack was searched and a Stanley Knife (or Utility Knife if you're American) was found - obviously his explaining the situation was probably a key reason he was let off with a caution. Bear in mind of course that as with drugs, possession of an offensive weapon is a statutory offence under UK law i.e it does not matter what your intentions are, ownership in itself is the crime.As I mentioned before, I think the onus needs to be on the Police to make such an offer and if they see you're not going to cooperate, they are free to suggest issuing you with a verbal/written caution if you make a frank admission. Obviously you should discuss this with your Solicitor to be certain that you are confessing to the same crime of which they think you are guilty.V. Quote from: Duckman on May 13, 2012, 01:30 pmThe CPS basically look at the likelihood of a conviction before deciding if you should go to court.They like to have a high success rate as its a figure their usefulness and funding is based on.The problem you have is that possession is a crime and almost all drugs cases have a possession charge. Other than disputing the legality of the search there isnt much you can do to change the fact that you were caught with something that its illegal to be caught with.You are right that pleading guilty in court is the same as admitting guilt to the police so you dont really loose anything by not admitting your guilt early, but by the same token you dont really gain anything by not admitting guilt in something like a possession charge because its just so open and shut.On possession charges, where the quantity is small, the police have the discretion on whether or not to refer it to the CPS or to offer a formal caution, being as its up to them, you are probably better off admitting early and hoping for the caution.