THE future of thousands of police investigations was still unclear last night as a senior officer said a controversial legal ruling on bailing suspects may see criminals escape justice.

There are 6,256 suspects on police bail in the Thames Valley, and yesterday the Government and senior police officers were trying to determine how they would overturn the High Court decision that means people must be charged or released within four days of being arrested.

They can only be re-arrested later if there is “new evidence”. It scraps the 25-year-old system whereby officers could bail a suspect for weeks or months while further investigations are carried out and a decision is made to charge them.

The fear is it will scupper investigations that take a long time, such as murders or rapes.

Superintendent Gez Chiariello, head of criminal justice at Thames Valley Police, said it would only affect how his officers operated rather than ultimately prosecuting criminals. But one experienced officer who did not want to be named told the Oxford Mail there was real fear among bobbies on the beat that it would scupper some of their most serious investigations.

He said: “Officers on the ground are staggered by this because we don’t know where this will leave us.

“We are glad the Government is saying it will tackle this with emergency legislation but that could take weeks, so where does that leave the cases we have?”

He added: “People are worried about it meaning a lot of guilty people not being brought to justice.

“The other impact could be that just to be able to keep tabs on a suspect, we charge people before there is sufficient evidence as we don’t want guilty people disappearing.”

Supt Chiariello said: “This ruling will inevitably have an impact on the way we investigate crime. We are concerned how this will affect the detention of suspects.”

Yet he added: “Those who commit crime will still be dealt with as they always have been and this new ruling will not prevent us from making arrests.”

The crisis was sparked by a ruling by a District Judge at Salford Magistrates Court. He said that, contrary to established custom and practice, the ‘clock’ allowing officers to detain someone for 96 hours did not pause when someone was released on police bail then re-start when they return to a police station.

He said the 96 hours ran continuously from the moment of arrest – a view the High Court backed last month.

The Government and senior police officers are taking a two-pronged attack. They are looking at drafting emergency legislation to outlaw the High Court view while also appealing it to the Supreme Court. That case won’t be heard until July 25.

Sgt Graham Smith, chairman of the Thames Valley branch of the Police Federation, said moves to overturn the ruling were “absolute common sense”.

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith said officers needed a “reasonable time, certainly longer than four days” to make decisions.

Karis Daniels, whose brother Blayne Ridgway was murdered outside Oxford’s Que Pasa bar 13 months ago, felt that police investigations could take too long. She said: “A bail period of two months is a long time. It can’t be a picnic getting evidence together in (96 hours) but it seems like something they need to do.”