Inside Police Custody 2 research, and was also confirmed by lawyers interviewed for this research, who also stated that in their view, whilst many suspects have a superficial knowledge of their procedural rights, they are often not aware of the details nor how to exercise them. There is some evidence, from lawyers interviewed for this research, and from previous research, that where the police are investigating without arresting a person, they sometimes do not stop questioning and inform the person of their rights even though there are grounds for suspecting that the person has committed an offence. 3.2.3 Romania The law provides that before ‘hearing’ a suspect or defendant, the police must give them a written notice of their rights. However, the law is not clear about how and when this should be done, and there is no provision regarding suspects who cannot read, or those who are vulnerable. There is a standard letter of rights, but it is expressed in technical language; it largely consists of extracts from the criminal procedure code. A revised letter of rights was introduced after the fieldwork for this research was completed, but it is not known whether it represents an improvement on the previous version. The standard letter of rights is only available in Romanian. The police were observed to routinely inform suspects of their rights. However, this was normally done in a manner that did not allow for the suspect to effectively exercise them. In many cases, the suspect was simply asked to sign a sheet of paper that was put in front of them, and in only three cases was the suspect observed to read it. Whilst police officers sometimes orally informed the suspect of their rights, this was often done in a manner designed to dissuade the suspect from exercising them. In one case, involving a child, the officer concerned did carefully inform the suspect of his rights, but this was unusual. Those suspects who had a lawyer were generally better informed of their rights, but this was because they were explained to the suspect by the lawyer. 3.2.4 Bulgaria As explained earlier, the Bulgarian authorities do not regard the Directive as applying to the initial police detention. Nevertheless, the law does require that whenever a person is deprived of their liberty, they must be informed of the grounds for detention, the suspected offence, and their rights under the Ministry of the Interior Act. The latter requires that a detained person be informed of their right to appeal the legality of detention, their right to a lawyer, and the right to have a third party informed. However, it does not include the other rights set out in Article 4 of the Directive. The law does not specify how the information is to be provided, nor the time within which a written notice must be provided. In practice, the written notice of rights is served with the detention order, but there is a wide variation in the time within which the order is served depending, in part, on where the person was detained, whether a search was conducted, etc., and it could be up to five hours after the initial detention. In the cases observed, the police did give suspects time to read the notice of rights. However, suspects interviewed for the research generally said that this was not their experience. They also informed researchers that police officers would often tell them what to write, for example, ‘I don’t want a lawyer’. An examination of over 180 records showed that requests for a doctor, for a third party to be informed, or for a special diet, were rare. 33