So desperate for a fix, a young man armed with a knife walked into an off-sales store to rob the place, despite knowing a video camera was recording.

Richard William Linklater's 64-page statement to an RCMP officer investigating a pair of mid-September 2003 robberies was formally admitted into evidence Wednesday afternoon.

Chief territorial court Judge Heino Lilles ruled the confession to both the Roadhouse off-sales armed robbery and the attempted armed robbery at Riverside Grocery the night before was voluntary.

Over an 80-minute interview with Const. Tracy Phillips, since promoted to corporal in charge of Whitehorse's property crimes section, Linklater eventually gave the officer details of how and why he'd held up the two businesses.

Linklater is scheduled to be back in court Friday afternoon to set a date for continuing the legal proceedings and to give him time to speak with his lawyer.

He'd been drinking and using drugs heroin and crack cocaine for between a few days to a week, Linklater told Phillips. During that time, he hadn't slept.

He'd been using more drugs than usual and had run out of money, Linklater said in his statement.

At one point, Phillips commented on the track marks running up the 21-year-old's arm. The scars were from needles used to inject drugs.

At the Riverside Grocery last Sept. 14, the robber asked for cigarettes. He then demanded money, showed the female clerk a hypodermic needle and said he had AIDS. Linklater told Phillips he doesn't have any diseases.

'What did the lady say when you said ,I've got AIDS and give me your money'?' Phillips asked.

'She said no,' Linklater replied.

Instead, the clerk told another employee to call police. Linklater said he fled, abandoning an orange shirt he'd been wearing in a nearby alley because it was too noticeable.

An orange fleece shirt has been handed over to the court, but is not yet a formal exhibit in the Crown's case.

When Linklater admitted he knew there were security cameras at the Roadhouse off-sales, Phillips asked why he went into the store. She received no response.

'Do you want to go back to jail?' she asked the young man.

'Umm,' was his only response.

'Do you care?'

Linklater: 'I just, no I just, I don't know, just needed my fix.'

'Yeah, OK, did you get it after that?'

'Oh yeah,' said Linklater. He explained he threw the knife into the Yukon River before going back to his girlfriend's apartment in Riverdale.

Before he was arrested on a downtown street corner a day later, Linklater spent all of the stolen $570, according to the statement.

The young man's interview with police started at 2:30 a.m., after he'd had some sleep since his 8:30 p.m.-arrest.

Defence counsel Gordon Coffin argued Linklater's lack of sleep after a week awake on a recent drug binge and suggestions by the constable that talking would get his legal matters moving faster created an 'atmosphere of oppression' and should render the statement inadmissible.

Lilles disagreed.

'There is almost nothing in the evidence before me that is capable of impacting negatively on the voluntariness of Mr. Linklater's statement to the police,' Lilles ruled yesterday.

'Mr. Linklater was never mistreated, he was questioned in a very friendly, conversational mode and he was not offered any inducements.'

The judge noted Linklater spoke to a lawyer before the interview with Phillips, who read him his rights, including his right to remain silent, for the third time since his arrest.

Before Linklater made any incriminating statements, Phillips told the suspect she wasn't in a position to make any deals with him. She repeated that warning again later when Linklater asked her what kind of help she could give him.

Lilles agreed with the Crown that Linklater was 'fishing' for a deal in return for admitting to the Riverside attempted robbery. The defence had argued the young man's question showed he thought it had been implied he could cut a deal if he talked.

'While Mr. Linklater may have been on drugs for several days prior to his arrest and may have had little sleep for several days, the evidence clearly establishes that at the time of the interview he was sober, not undergoing any drug withdrawal and not suffering from sleep deprivation,' Lilles said.

'Although most people find it difficult to accept anyone would confess to a crime they did not commit, a large body of literature and wrongful convictions reveal false confessions do occur. Under certain circumstances, people who are not guilty of an offence may confess to having committed it.'

Appealing to a suspect's conscience, as Phillips did, is not generally considered grounds to throw out a confession. However, promising lenient sentences or even suggestions that 'it would be better if you confessed' would certainly be questionable, Lilles explained.

Also, creating 'oppressive circumstances' by withholding sleep, food or clothing, or through harsh interrogation for a long time may be viewed as questionable.

'Oppressive circumstances could overcome the suspect's will, making persuasion easier,' Lilles said. 'Similarly, intense and prolonged questioning may cause an innocent suspect to feel they will inevitably be found guilty, making a promise of leniency more appealing.'

The law says, however, that neither an invitation to tell the truth nor an entreaty to seek help for aberrant behaviour is an offer that could be considered coercion.

Though the interview was long an hour and 20 minutes the transcript shows it didn't involve controlled, directed or aggressive questioning, said Lilles.

Linklater never asked for the interview to end. Nor did he ask for food, water, clothes or anything else that would suggest physical or emotional stress, the judge continued. He noted he is satisfied the interview environment wasn't oppressive.

Canada's top court has recognized that lying to a suspect about evidence the police have, combined with other oppressive factors, can lead to an involuntary confession.

'In this case, Constable Phillips did not fabricate any evidence, although she may have exaggerated its importance,' Lilles said. Phillips believed Linklater would be convicted because the Roadhouse clerk had picked him out of a photo lineup, the judge added.

'This evidence, in my view, was a significant factor in persuading Mr. Linklater to admit his involvement. But in my view, Constable Phillips was entitled to use this evidence in the way that she did.'