June 10, 2024 • 40 mins
In this episode, former Scotland Yard detective inspector, Steve Keogh, explains how murder detectives interview suspects, plus gives some techniques he employed during his career.
If you enjoy these podcasts, you may wish to join the online community at https://steve-keogh.thinkific.com/pages/landing-page where you can meet and talk with fellow authors, take part in regular Q&As with Steve Keogh and make use of the online courses, all designed to help you achieve authenticity in your storytelling.
You can learn more about all of Steve's work at https://stevekeogh.com/ and find out about the two books Steve has published and his TV series, Secrets of a Murder Detective.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Keogh (00:02):
Welcome to Murder investigation for crime Writers, the podcast where we delve
into the dark world of murder to help bringauthenticity to your stories.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, a former ScotlandYard detective inspector.
So grab your notebook, sharpen your pencils,and prepare to embark on a journey into a
world few get to see.
This is murder investigation for crime
(00:23):
writers.
Hello and welcome to episode six of murder
Investigation for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keough.
I'm a former murder detective, spent twelveyears investigating murders.
Since leaving the police, I have written acouple of books on how murder is investigated.
(00:45):
I present a tv show called secrets of a Murderdetective on the channel True Crime.
And I run an online community called MurderInvestigation for crime writers, where the aim
is to really help you develop the authenticityof your work.
And details of all of this can be found on ourwebsite, stevekio.com.
so today I'm going to be talking aboutinterviewing, interviewing of suspects,
(01:06):
interviewing of prisoners, interviewing ofmurderers, and I'm going to break it down into
a few different parts.
So first off, I want to just cover a few of
the things I've seen in police fiction wherethey get it wrong, where mistakes are made
around how suspects are interviewed.
Then I'm going to look at how it's actually
(01:29):
done, the methods that detectives use and thetraining they go through.
And then lastly, what I want to do is cover acouple of the techniques that I developed over
my career that helped me become an effectiveinterviewer and essentially get people to talk
to you when they don't necessarily want to doso.
(01:52):
And hopefully that might give you a few ideasfor your own writing, for your own detectives
and how they interview people.
First off, the mistakes that I often see in
police fiction.
So the first one I would say is overly
aggressive interviewers where they're bangingon the table and they're shouting and they're
basically trying to intimidate the personthey're interviewing.
(02:16):
It's so not like that.
I mean, it might have been at one point back
in, back in the day, but it certainly isn'tlike that now.
Interviews are video recorded.
Those that are interviewed generally have
legal representation, so it's not going tohappen.
And if someone's got a solicitor and you startbanging on a table and being overly aggressive
(02:37):
with their client, they're going to ask you tostop and they're going to intervene.
It's just not going to happen.
And just imagine later on if somebody did say
something as a result of your overaggressiveness, when you get to court, that
will be played into the judge and the defencewill make a big play on this and will say,
look, this confession or this statement wasobtained out of duress and they will make an
(03:04):
application for it to be not put before ajury.
And if you've been acting in that way, there'sa good chance a judge is going to agree with
them.
And when you see interviews playing out on tv,
etcetera, it is very confession focused thatthe police are desperate to get the person
(03:25):
they're interviewing to admit their part inthe offence, to admit that they killed the
person.
And that's not what the purpose of interviews
are.
I'm not gonna lie.
If you're interviewing someone and theyconfess to the murder, yeah, it's nice.
And it could lead on to other evidence beingsecured, such as a murder weapon or clothing
(03:49):
or property that was stolen from a victim, orin some circumstances, maybe the victim
themselves, if the body is outstanding.
But that's not the purpose of an interview.
You're not trying to make them confess.
What you're trying to do, ideally, is get them
to talk, get them to commit to a story, tocommit to an account, and that's because it
(04:10):
then makes it more difficult at court for themto come out with something else.
If you can get someone to.
Even if they're saying, it wasn't me, I wasn't
there, I was elsewhere.
And then some evidence later comes on, which
makes it much harder to stick to that story.
Some forensics, etcetera, and then they later
on come out and say, well, actually, I wasthere, but I didn't commit the murder.
(04:32):
Well, straight away, the jury are going tostart looking at that and think, well, you're
lying back then, how can we believe you now?So you're trying to get them just to commit to
an account, not confess, not admit any guilt,but just to put it out there.
What their side is, what their account is,were they involved or not?
(04:53):
Were they there or not?If not, where were they?
So you're trying to explore with them theirexplanation, their side of events.
As I say, that doesn't have to be aconfession, but it just needs to be them
pinning their colours to a mask.
Then you've got how long these interviews go
on for.
There always seems to be an urgency in police
(05:13):
interviews on the tv, when in actual fact,these interviews can last over days.
When somebody's arrested for a murder, theycan be held for a maximum of four days, 96
hours.
People have heard of 24 hours in police
custody.
When someone's arrested for an offence, that's
how long you can keep them for.
With the authority of a superintendent, that
can be extended another 12 hours to 36, andthen going to a court for a warrant of further
(05:39):
detention, they can give you an extra 36,making 72, and then you can go back to the
court again and get an extra 24, making amaximum of 96.
So over those four days, you can imaginesomebody's going to be interviewed a lot.
They're going to be interviewed over hours andthere's no rush.
There isn't that urgency that you'd see quiteoften in fiction.
(06:02):
Another thing is the showing of graphicimages.
You're not going to put a picture of a deadvictim in front of a suspect.
It's just not allowed.
It's seen as oppressive.
And going back to the same thing as if you'rebeing overly aggressive with a person you're
interviewing, if you start showing thempictures of dead bodies, etcetera, again, that
(06:27):
can be seen as oppressive and it could affectthe outcome of the interview and what can be
used from it.
So that won't happen.
So there's some of the things that I see inpolice fiction that are wrong.
Let's talk about how it is done, how policeactually interview people.
(06:47):
And what I want to do is just start off withexplaining the levels of interviewers in the
police.
And not every police officer is trained to the
same level when it comes to interviewingsuspects.
All police officers start off being classed aswhat's known as tier one.
So when police start their training, they willhave input into how to interview witnesses and
(07:12):
how to interview suspects.
And the suspect element is known as tier one.
And they will be taught what's known as thepeace model.
Peace being peace.
And we'll go into that in a bit more detail in
a bit.
When officers become detectives, they have a
week long course known as tier two, and alldetectives will have that.
(07:34):
And it's a more advanced way of interviewingthan would be on tier one.
And then there are advanced interviewers knownas tier three.
And this is a three week course, veryintensive course, and it's pass or fail.
Unless they prove themselves good enough, theywon't be passed.
(07:54):
And there is an extra tier known as tier five,interview advisors.
They would be used by the senior officers toadvise them on interview techniques and the
way forward and a strategy with an interview,and also the officers carrying out the
interview.
Tier one, tier two and tier three are the
interviewers and tier five is an interviewadvisor.
(08:18):
When interviews are conducted, it will be twoofficers that carry it out.
And sorry, but it won't be a DCI or a di.
Now, for your writing, if you choose to do
that, absolutely fine.
What I will always say when it comes to your
stories is it's your story and you write ithow you want to do it, but a strong believer
(08:42):
that you should know how it is done correctly,which is the whole purpose of these podcasts.
This is how it's done.
And your poetic licence, you do it how you
like, but it would not be, in real life, a DIYor a DCI interview and a suspect.
It certainly wouldn't be a superintendent likeI saw in a programme recently.
So two officers, it will be a DC and a DS ortwo DC's.
(09:07):
Now, most people who are being interviewed formurder will have a solicitor.
It's one of the rights you come in when youget booked into a police station.
You have the right to free and independentlegal advice.
And most of them, understandably, I would wantone if I was being arrested and interviewed
for murder.
Most of them, most people will elect to have
(09:29):
legal representation.
That doesn't necessarily mean that person is a
solicitor.
They could be what's known as a legal
representative, but they're a legalrepresentative or a solicitor.
And for ease in this podcast, I'll just referto them as a solicitor.
When solicitor comes to the police station,they will expect what's known as either pre
(09:50):
interview disclosure or pre interviewbriefing.
Essentially what that is.
The investigators tell the solicitor an amount
of information and it's down to theinvestigators how much they tell them.
But it should be enough that the solicitor canadvise their client.
If the solicitor turns up and the investigatorsay to the solicitor, I'm not telling you
(10:13):
anything, we're not going to tell you anythingat all.
It'll be very difficult for that solicitor toadvise their client.
Then they will advise their client to say, nocomment, do not answer any questions.
Under the law in England and Wales, if you goto court and at the trial, you come out with
something there that you haven't come outwith.
(10:35):
At a police station, a judge can direct ajury, that they can take that as an inference
of guilt.
But if the investigating officers haven't
given sufficient information to the solicitorto be able to advise their client, then the
judge may well agree with any application fromthe defence that that warning shouldn't be
(10:58):
given to a jury, because how could theirdefendant actually answer any questions when
they haven't been properly advised and thesolicitor couldn't advise them because the
police didn't give them enough information?To be able to do that.
So the police will give what's known as preinterview briefing or pre interview
disclosure, and that will be in the form of awritten document, a typed out document.
(11:22):
When it comes to murder investigations, whatwill also happen is that the giving of that
information to the solicitor will be recorded.
So they'll go into a police interview room,
turn on the recording, and the officers willread over that briefing to the solicitor.
And that recording will also take into accountany questions the solicitor asks and any
(11:46):
answers the officers give over and abovewhat's in that written briefing.
So that's a very important part of aninterview when it comes to murders.
Once the solicitor has that information, theywill then go and have a consultation with
their client.
And that can take a long time.
It can take hours.
It's quite boring sitting there waiting for a
solicitor when they're having a consultation.
(12:07):
But it has to happen.
It's only right, isn't it, that the solicitorhas time with a client to properly advise
them?Once that's all done, once all the
consultations are done, then they'll go in andthey'll start to have an interview.
Now, who else may be in an interview room?Well, if person being interviewed is under 18
years of age, so 17 or younger, they will haveto have an appropriate adult.
(12:31):
And that could be a family member, parent,guardian.
Sometimes it may be a social worker, has to bean adult who's 18 or over and not subject as
part of the investigation.
And they will be there to facilitate
communication with the person beinginterviewed.
That is help to explain things in a way thatthe person being interviewed might understand
(12:53):
if they're not understanding the interviewingofficers and.
And also to ensure that that person's beinglooked after fairly, so they're there for
their own welfare to make.
To look out for them.
Also, a vulnerable adult would also require anappropriate adult.
So that's someone who might be suffering frommental illness or have learning disabilities,
and that adult, again, will play the same roleas if that person were a juvenile.
(13:17):
Also, you might have an interpreter presentand they would obviously be there to interpret
the questions and the answers.
It's not unusual, and I've been there many
times where in an interview room we have allof those present.
We have an appropriate adult, an interpreter,a solicitor, the two interviewing officers.
So it can get a bit crowded.
At the start of an interview, everybody will
(13:38):
introduce themselves and the person beinginterviewed will be cautioned.
You do not have to say anything.
It may harm your defence if you do not
mention, when questioned, something whichyou'll later rely on in court.
Anything you do say may be given an evidenceand the interview will be structured and it
will be the peace model p eace that the policeofficers will be following, either stringently
or loosely.
(13:59):
But their training is to follow the peace
model.
So what does peace stand for?
Order P is for preparation and planning.
So a police officer shouldn't just go into an
interview, especially for something as seriousas a murder, without having a plan of what
they want to ask.
And that would include understanding the
(14:20):
evidence, understanding where this person fitsin with the investigation, so they can then
plan the questions that they ask, plan thetopics that they want to cover in the police.
As a saying, proper preparation prevents ****poor performance.
That is, if you want to do things right andyou have to think about them beforehand, then
(14:40):
the e is engage and explain.
So engage essentially means trying to build up
a rapport with the person you're interviewing.
It's very difficult to interview someone if
you don't have any kind of rapport with them.
And it's much easier for them not to say
anything to you or lie to you if you haven'tbuilt up that rapport.
And also it's about calming them down andputting them in a relaxed mood so they're
(15:02):
capable of talking to you and explain ismaking it clear to the person their rights,
what the purpose of the interview is, what mayhappen with the recording at the end.
So they're under no doubts as to what's goingon and why.
And then the a is for account.
The first part of an interview will always be
(15:23):
a very open question, hoping that the personyou're interviewing is just going to dump on
you, just tell you everything that they knowabout the offence, about the reason why
they're there, etcetera.
Very open question.
So it'd be something along the lines of,you've been arrested for the murder of John
Smith, tell me all you know about thatincident, something as open as that.
(15:44):
So they will tell you.
And then after that you say, well, thank you
very much for that.
We'd just like to go into a bit more detail.
You'll pick a point and you'll gochronologically along and you will go into
what's known as fine grain detail, going intomore detail about what they told you, really
drilling down in it, really trying to get aproper understanding of what was going on at
(16:05):
this time.
Who else was there?
Where was this happening?Then, after the account comes the challenge
phase.
The challenge phase is essentially where
you're putting to somebody.
The inconsistencies of their story,
highlighting the discrepancies in theiraccount, putting the evidence to them, putting
pressure on them to say, well, actually, okay,you've told me this, but I've got evidence
(16:27):
that's to the contrary.
I've got evidence that proves that you
committed this crime, I've got evidence thatproves that you've been lying, but you don't
want to be putting that to them too early,because at the moment you do, they're probably
going to shut down and they're not going towant to talk to you.
So you need to get as much information out ofthem as possible before you start hitting them
(16:48):
with your.
Hitting might be a wrong word.
Remember, we don't get aggressive ininterviews.
So you're not hitting them, but you're givingthem the evidence and you're saying to them
essentially why you think they're guilty orwhy you think they're lying, but you don't do
that too early.
That comes close to the end, and then c is
closure.
So once you've done all that, you've gone
(17:09):
through their account, you've been through thechallenge phase, then it's closure and
essentially is right, we've got to the end ofthis interview.
Is there anything else you want to add,anything you want to clarify?
And then the e is evaluate.
So you come out of the interview and you look
at what the person has said to you and arethere any investigative lines that we now need
to follow as a result of this interview?That is, we need to go and speak to somebody
(17:32):
to clarify a point.
We need to speak to somebody to prove them
right.
We need to speak to somebody to prove them
wrong.
Cheque some CCTV, because they said they were
to hear that kind of thing.
So as a result of what they told you, what now
do we need to do in the investigation?And that's evaluate.
Now, in the UK there, everybody has a right tosilence when they're being interviewed.
(17:56):
How does that impact what the interviewingofficers are doing?
Well, it doesn't really.
A lot of people you interview, I'd say
probably the majority, and quite a significantmajority of people you interview for murder
are going to say no comment.
And that's the advice that most solicitors
will give their clients.
(18:17):
But that doesn't mean when you've asked your
first question and someone says no comment,that you just go, okay, well, we might as well
leave it then.
You still have to ask the same questions, you
still have to cover the same topics and whatyou can't also do is take it for granted that
just because someone started off saying nocomment that they're going to stick to that.
Also a point I just want to cover isdisruptive solicitors.
(18:40):
Now solicitors are there to advise theirclient, they're not there to direct the
interview.
But you can have situations where solicitors
try and do that.
They try and be the ones that dictate where
their interview is going and that can be verydifficult for younger officers.
Officers with less experience might be drawnin by these solicitors, but in my experience
(19:05):
the easiest thing is to very, very quicklyjust shut it down.
Don't get into an argument with them, don'tget into a debate.
If they've said something that they believe isright and they're standing up for their
client, you just thank them.
Thank you Mister Jones.
Your observations are noted and they've beenrecorded on the tape and then you move on.
(19:26):
But if solicitors persist and they get in theway of you being able to do the job, it is
possible to get them removed from theinterview and from the police station, but
it's not something I would tend to normallyget involved in.
If you've reached that stage, you've lost it,it's gone wrong.
So normally it's just a case of listening tothem, acknowledging their concerns and just
(19:48):
moving on.
But solicitors are there to look out for their
client's interest and as I say, the majorityof them are going to, in a murder case, tell
their client to say no comment.
So how do you deal with that?
How do you get someone shifted from a positionwhere they say no comment?
Because that's what the solicitor advised themto get into a point where what you want them
(20:11):
to do is to commit to a story, to commit to anaccount.
How do you get them to shift from that whenthey've got solicitor sat next to them?
So a technique I used to use was apsychological one, it was designed to make
that solicitor's advice seem less good.
And the way I used to do that is by taking the
(20:36):
person I was interviewing out of the interviewroom in their mind and putting them in their
mind at court, mumps down the line, puttingtheir, putting them there at court.
And it would go along the lines of somethinglike this.
Right, okay, so that is the advice from yoursolicitor.
Now what I want you to do now is imagine we'reat court six months down the line and the
(21:01):
trial has started.
When we go there, you are more than likely
going to have to go into the witness box andgive evidence and you'll be giving that
evidence to the jury and it'll be the jury'sdecision as to whether or not you're guilty.
Now, they're going to know that at the policestation here whether or not you said anything.
(21:25):
And if you say nothing now and then in sixmonths time, you come out with something that
you could quite easily have told me.
Now if you're innocent, you can tell me now if
you didn't do it.
Easiest thing in the world, isn't it?
Just tell me now that you didn't do it.
And the jury are going to know that and
(21:47):
they're going to be looking at you givingevidence and wondering, why didn't he just say
that to steve back then?Why is it taking him all this time?
Is it because now you've got access to ourfull case file?
You know what we know and you've waited andyou've manufactured what you're going to say.
(22:08):
You've engineered it, you've fit it in aroundthe evidence that we've got.
That's what the jury are going to be thinking,isn't it?
They're going to be looking at you and that'swhat they're going to be wondering.
Put yourself in their position, forget thatyou're you now.
Put yourself on that jury and you are lookingat a person trying to persuade you that
(22:31):
they're telling the truth.
Trying to persuade you of an account that they
could have come out with six months ago,twelve months ago.
If it were true, if they were innocent, theycould have told Steve back then.
They waited all this time, really?And what about the fact your solicitors here,
your solicitor is not going to be in courtwith you.
(22:53):
He is not going to be sat with you givingevidence.
That's you and you alone.
And if jury don't believe you, it's you that's
going to prison and it's you that's going toprison for a long time.
So I want you to really think about whatyou're doing.
Think about how this is going to play out incourt.
(23:13):
Think about what those members of the jury aregoing to believe.
Are they going to believe you coming out withit then?
When you could have told me now if you'reinnocent, tell me now.
Give me your side of the account and when youget to court, it won't be the first time
you've come out with it.
The jury won't be sat there thinking, well,
(23:33):
he's had all this time to make it up, isn'the?
Because I know that's what I would be thinkingif I were on that jury.
What would you be thinking?Something along those lines.
Something to make them think about theconsequences of their actions.
Try to remove that comfort blanket of thesolicitor.
(23:56):
And that's what the solicitor is.
It's a comfort blanket that they can hide
behind.
But if you can strip that away and make that
advice seem less good, make them think aboutthe consequences of them not saying anything.
Honestly, it was such an impactful way ofinterviewing someone because they're seeing
the consequences of their actions.
(24:17):
They're seeing what could result of them not
just coming out with an account now.
And so many times, honestly, so many times by
going through this, by putting thatpsychological pressure on them of what could
go wrong if they don't talk to me now.
So many times it stopped a person from going
from no comment and it made them speak.
(24:38):
And the solicitor might say, remember my
advice?I've told you, say no comment.
But by then it's probably too late.
They want to speak because they know the
repercussions of them not.
And it was such a good technique.
I used it all the time.
I used it every time someone was saying no
comment.
I used to use it.
And so many times, so many times it workedbecause they saw what could go wrong.
(25:02):
And then there was a second technique that Iused.
Now, you probably have heard of good cop badcop.
It's that old trope where one officer's niceto the person being interviewed and the other
one not so nice, and a nice one sweeps in andgains the trust of the person they're
interviewing.
Because of that.
(25:23):
I'll keep that horrible one away from you.
You talk to me, I'll look after you.
Ignore them.
Now, I've never seen that done.
Whether or not it works or not, I don't know,but we don't use it, certainly not in the UK.
But I did use a technique of good cop bad cop.
But I was both.
I was good cop until I became bad cop.
(25:44):
And it used to work like this.
So first off, I would be looking to gain thetrust of the person I was interviewing,
basically trying to get them to like me.
And there'd be several ways in which you could
do that.
I perfected this when I was interviewing
terrorists and it was a. It was easier in someways because before, where I was talking about
having somebody in custody for four days.
(26:06):
When you're interviewing a terrorist, you have
them for 14 days, but you're not going to beinterviewing them for that whole time.
They will be some days, you'll be.
You'll be leaving them in the cell because
there's not a lot to put to them.
And I always made a point that whenever I was
there in the custody, I would be the one toget them out of the cell.
So if they needed to come out to have theirfingerprints taken, to be interviewed, talk to
(26:30):
a solicitor, whatever it was, it would be methat would go and open the door and get them
out.
Always with a smile on my face, always having
a joke with them, usually with a cup of tea inmy hand, building up that trust.
I would always find some common ground withthem, something that we could talk about, be
it football or what they're studying atcollege or what they do for a job or the area
(26:54):
they live in.
I'd find some kind of topic that I could
always go back to and speak to them andexplore and expand on building up that rapport
and that trust.
And what I would never do is be the person
that took them back into the cell, that lockedthem up.
I'd always get one of the custody staff, likea jailer, to do that.
(27:17):
Those bad people there, they're locking youaway, I'm bringing you out, I'm rescuing you.
And when you're in custody for that long,especially we're there for 14 days, they're
cut off from the outside world.
I'd always bring them little snippets of
what's going on in the outside world.
I'm their connection to the outside.
They don't like being in the cell, but I'mtheir connection to the outside, building up
(27:40):
their rapport.
And then when we got into an interview room,
the way I would sit in interview room, so Iwould always lean back in my chair and my
chair would be away from the table, so there'dbe a fair distance between me and them.
Always smiling, always relaxed in betweentapes, having a laugh with them, just trying
(28:01):
to make it so difficult for them not to wantto speak to me.
You imagine if you're in a situation whereyou're with somebody you don't like, how much
easier would it be not to speak to them?But then if you're with someone you do like,
who keeps asking you questions, naturallyyou're going to want to answer them and you're
going to have to force yourself not to.
(28:22):
That's the kind of environment I'll be trying
to build.
I'm sat across a table from someone who likes
me, trusts me and is going to find itdifficult not to speak to me.
And we would go through the evidence, we gothrough their account.
If you're dealing with terrorists, they're notgoing to talk to you.
In actual fact, they don't even say nocomment, they say nothing at all.
(28:44):
But you still got to go through it and you doit in a relaxed way.
Even when you put in evidence to them, you'reputting it in a relaxed way.
Now, they've been arrested for a reallyserious offence, but actually it's not that
bad.
There's this person, he's looking after me,
we're having a laugh.
He's not putting me under any pressure.
(29:05):
It's not as bad as I thought he was going tobe.
I actually feel quite relaxed about this.
There was one particular terrorist I was
interviewing, and on the days where we didn'ttake them out for interview, the solicitor
spoke to me and said, on those days whereyou're not interviewing him, he misses you.
This was a terrorist who was planning attacksthat would curl your toes.
(29:27):
But when I wasn't interviewing him, he wasmissing me.
It was all because of that.
That was me that was rescuing him from the
cell.
I was the one with the rapport, having a laugh
with him, giving those snippets from theoutside world, building up that trust.
And that's what made the next phase soeffective.
So that was me Goodcott.
(29:48):
But then we would get to that challenge phase,
the bit where you're challenging theinconsistencies of their stories,
inconsistencies in their accounts, laying theevidence in front of them, showing them why
they're guilty, why you believe they'reguilty, why you believe a jury would find them
guilty.
So you're putting that pressure on them.
(30:08):
But I wouldn't be introducing that as goodcop, I would now be bad cop.
So I would move my chair forward.
So instead of being four or 5ft from them, I
would lean in and I was probably closer to 2ftfrom them.
Smile for my face has gone completely.
I'm no longer smiling.
My tone has changed and it's all happened veryquickly.
(30:34):
1 second I was relaxed, smiling, now I'mleaning in.
My tone has changed, I'm no longer your friendand it's a shock to them.
It really becomes a shock to them because theyweren't expecting it.
There was no warning.
I changed very, very quickly.
And if we go back to what I said at thebeginning, when you're interviewing someone,
(30:58):
you're not being aggressive, you're not beingdomineering, you're not being overbearing, but
psychologically, if you change who you are asa person, from being their friend to being
very much.
They're not their friend.
You snap them out of their comfort zone.
I don't like this anymore.
This person was my friend.
(31:19):
Why is he being like this?
I don't like it now.
I don't like what he's telling me now.
I don't like the evidence that he's showingme.
And it was so effective, they wouldn't want tolook at you.
Look at me in the eye.
Look at me.
I'm talking to you.
Look me in the eye.
This is the evidence that I say proves you canguilty.
(31:43):
Now, you may have thought that when youcarried out this act that you were going to
die, but you're not going to die.
You're going to prison and you're going to go
to prison for a long time.
Are you prepared for that?
Is that what you wanted?Because I think that's what's going to happen
to you.
How are your family going to feel?
(32:05):
They're going to be ashamed of you.
They're going to be embarrassed.
You were going to do some horrendous things topeople.
You didn't care who they were.
This evidence here, this has convinced me that
you're guilty.
I think it's going to convince a jury.
I think you're going to go away for a longtime.
They're going to want to know.
(32:26):
What have you got to say about that?
What are you going to do?You're going to go there and explain to them
at court, what are they going to think?Why didn't you explain that to Steve back
then?Explain to me, why were you doing this?
What was your purpose?Look at this evidence here.
This is you.
(32:47):
This proves your guilt.
Look at this evidence here.
I mean, no doubt jury are going to be in no
doubt, are they?You're going to go to prison for a long time,
that kind of thing.
So your tone has changed.
You're no longer their friend and you're nothere with them now in the here and now.
You're moving them to the court.
(33:09):
You're moving them to that trial, and you've
made it seem like there's something reallyhorrible coming over the hill to them.
And then you start to build up that pressureon them.
So that probably the best thing they can donow is just talk to me.
I've given you all this time where I've beennice to you.
I'm no longer being nice to you.
(33:29):
And I'm making it clear what your future
holds.
And it don't look pretty.
Now, when I was interviewing terrorists, oneof the first things you talk to them about is
what's known as a safety interview.
So that's essentially you trying to find out
from them if there's anything in existencethat could harm either police officers or the
(33:50):
public.
So I'd ask the question, are you aware of the
location of any firearm, explosive orchemical?
And you'd put that to them.
And the terrorists, they won't answer you,
they won't say a thing.
But I'd always revisit it periodically
throughout, even during the relaxed time whenwe're going through an account.
(34:10):
Periodically I'd approach it, because it'simportant, isn't it?
If those things are out there, we need to findthem.
But with this particular terrorist, Irevisited it after I was bad cop, I was no
longer his friend, I was worse, I was hisfriend that was being horrible to him.
And by now he was in tears.
(34:31):
He had his legs up on the chair and he was
hugging his knees and he was crying.
And I revisited it.
Right, tell me if you know the location of anyfirearm, explosive or chemical.
Tell me now.
(34:52):
And he looked at his solicitor and he looked
at me and I just knew.
I knew he wanted to speak to me.
You want to speak to me, don't you?He kind of half nodded, looked at his
solicitor.
The solicitor said, I think I need a bit of
time with my client.
I said, no worries, and I looked at him, I
said, when I come back, I want you to answerthat question.
(35:15):
And he kind of half nodded again.
Colleague and I, we left the room.
You never get terrorists to talk to you.
If he now was going to tell me where some
firearms, explosive chemicals were, that wasgoing to be huge.
And it was probably the longest ten minutes ofmy life, standing outside, waiting for the
solicitor to let us know that they'refinished.
(35:35):
And the door opened and we walked in.
He was sat there still in that foetal
position, feet on the chair, hugging his kneesto his chest.
And I looked at him.
Do you know the location of any firearm,
explosive or chemical?He looked at the solicitor, he looked at me
(35:57):
and he said, no. My heart just sank.
I put him under that much pressure that he
needed to answer the question, but he neededjust to tell me no. He just wanted to tell me
that he didn't know the location of any ofthese items.
And it was so deflating.
(36:18):
I'd gone from thinking I'd cracked this al
Qaeda terrorist, making him want to speak tome, giving up the location of these things, it
was going to be huge, completely deflated.
That actually he didn't know.
And all he wanted to do was tell me no. Now,at the time, I was so disappointed.
(36:40):
I was still disappointed.
Now, what I think about it, I was so
disappointed.
But it was validation for my technique.
It was that building the trust, snapping himout of that comfort zone very, very quickly,
and then putting that pressure on them, somuch so that he felt he had to speak to me.
In this instance, it didn't help.
(37:01):
He didn't talk to us, he didn't explain
anything.
I mean, he went to court, got found guilty and
went away for a long time, but it didn't help.
But this interview didn't add anything to
that.
But that technique I used many times on many
other types of prisoner, and it did work.
It's that good cop, bad cop.
It's that bringing somebody in, making themfeel comfortable, and snapping them out of it
(37:26):
very, very quickly, and then building thatpressure on them.
And so many times, so many times it worked.
And you went from somebody saying no comment
to basically just telling you their side ofthe story.
And as I say, it's not about confession,that's not what this process is about.
It's not about making somebody confess tosomething.
It's about getting them to commit.
(37:48):
Commit to a story, to pin their colours to a
mask.
And as I say, it was so, so effective.
There you go.
I've given you what they teach you in the
classroom, which is just following a structureand two examples of techniques that I found
really useful in interviewing people andgetting them to speak to you when they don't
(38:10):
want to.
So I hope that that's given you some food for
thought for your writing.
Maybe you might want to use aspects of that,
or adapt it in some way for your detectives.
I don't know, but I hope you found that
useful.
So this is now the 6th episode, and it's a
third kind of format.
(38:31):
So we've.
We've had ones where it's just me talking.
We've had one interview so far, and we've had
the fiction watch.
Looking at Luther.
It'd be really helpful for me if you couldgive me some feedback on those formats, what
works for you, what doesn't, what you wouldlike to see in the future.
Because ultimately, these podcasts are aboutyou.
They're about helping you getting a betterunderstanding of how murders are investigated.
(38:56):
So anything at all, if you're in the onlinecommunity, just leave something in the forum,
just explaining exactly what you would like tolearn about or some feedback on the episode so
far.
If you're not part of the online community,
then I can be reached via Instagram or email,so I hope you found that helpful.
I've been Steve Keogh and I'll see you nexttime.
(39:18):
Thank you for joining me on another episode ofMurder Investigation for Crime Writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keough, and it's been apleasure delving into the world of murder
investigation with you.
Authenticity is key for crime writers and I
hope this podcast has provided you withvaluable insights and inspiration for your
storytelling journey.
If you found value in what you've heard today,
(39:38):
I encourage you to share this podcast withyour fellow authors.
Together we can elevate the standards of crimefiction and bring realism to the forefront.
If you have a moment, I'd also appreciate ifyou could leave a review you on your favourite
podcast platform.
Your feedback helps others discover the
podcast and join our community of passionatecrime writers.
Thank you for listening.
(39:59):
Until next time, keep writing, keep
investigating, and keep bringing your storiesto life.
I've been Steve Keough.
Welcome to Murder investigation for crime Writers, the podcast where we delve
into the dark world of murder to help bringauthenticity to your stories.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, a former ScotlandYard detective inspector.
So grab your notebook, sharpen your pencils,and prepare to embark on a journey into a
world few get to see.
This is murder investigation for crime
(00:23):
writers.
Hello and welcome to episode six of murder
Investigation for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keough.
I'm a former murder detective, spent twelveyears investigating murders.
Since leaving the police, I have written acouple of books on how murder is investigated.
(00:45):
I present a tv show called secrets of a Murderdetective on the channel True Crime.
And I run an online community called MurderInvestigation for crime writers, where the aim
is to really help you develop the authenticityof your work.
And details of all of this can be found on ourwebsite, stevekio.com.
so today I'm going to be talking aboutinterviewing, interviewing of suspects,
(01:06):
interviewing of prisoners, interviewing ofmurderers, and I'm going to break it down into
a few different parts.
So first off, I want to just cover a few of
the things I've seen in police fiction wherethey get it wrong, where mistakes are made
around how suspects are interviewed.
Then I'm going to look at how it's actually
(01:29):
done, the methods that detectives use and thetraining they go through.
And then lastly, what I want to do is cover acouple of the techniques that I developed over
my career that helped me become an effectiveinterviewer and essentially get people to talk
to you when they don't necessarily want to doso.
(01:52):
And hopefully that might give you a few ideasfor your own writing, for your own detectives
and how they interview people.
First off, the mistakes that I often see in
police fiction.
So the first one I would say is overly
aggressive interviewers where they're bangingon the table and they're shouting and they're
basically trying to intimidate the personthey're interviewing.
(02:16):
It's so not like that.
I mean, it might have been at one point back
in, back in the day, but it certainly isn'tlike that now.
Interviews are video recorded.
Those that are interviewed generally have
legal representation, so it's not going tohappen.
And if someone's got a solicitor and you startbanging on a table and being overly aggressive
(02:37):
with their client, they're going to ask you tostop and they're going to intervene.
It's just not going to happen.
And just imagine later on if somebody did say
something as a result of your overaggressiveness, when you get to court, that
will be played into the judge and the defencewill make a big play on this and will say,
look, this confession or this statement wasobtained out of duress and they will make an
(03:04):
application for it to be not put before ajury.
And if you've been acting in that way, there'sa good chance a judge is going to agree with
them.
And when you see interviews playing out on tv,
etcetera, it is very confession focused thatthe police are desperate to get the person
(03:25):
they're interviewing to admit their part inthe offence, to admit that they killed the
person.
And that's not what the purpose of interviews
are.
I'm not gonna lie.
If you're interviewing someone and theyconfess to the murder, yeah, it's nice.
And it could lead on to other evidence beingsecured, such as a murder weapon or clothing
(03:49):
or property that was stolen from a victim, orin some circumstances, maybe the victim
themselves, if the body is outstanding.
But that's not the purpose of an interview.
You're not trying to make them confess.
What you're trying to do, ideally, is get them
to talk, get them to commit to a story, tocommit to an account, and that's because it
(04:10):
then makes it more difficult at court for themto come out with something else.
If you can get someone to.
Even if they're saying, it wasn't me, I wasn't
there, I was elsewhere.
And then some evidence later comes on, which
makes it much harder to stick to that story.
Some forensics, etcetera, and then they later
on come out and say, well, actually, I wasthere, but I didn't commit the murder.
(04:32):
Well, straight away, the jury are going tostart looking at that and think, well, you're
lying back then, how can we believe you now?So you're trying to get them just to commit to
an account, not confess, not admit any guilt,but just to put it out there.
What their side is, what their account is,were they involved or not?
(04:53):
Were they there or not?If not, where were they?
So you're trying to explore with them theirexplanation, their side of events.
As I say, that doesn't have to be aconfession, but it just needs to be them
pinning their colours to a mask.
Then you've got how long these interviews go
on for.
There always seems to be an urgency in police
(05:13):
interviews on the tv, when in actual fact,these interviews can last over days.
When somebody's arrested for a murder, theycan be held for a maximum of four days, 96
hours.
People have heard of 24 hours in police
custody.
When someone's arrested for an offence, that's
how long you can keep them for.
With the authority of a superintendent, that
can be extended another 12 hours to 36, andthen going to a court for a warrant of further
(05:39):
detention, they can give you an extra 36,making 72, and then you can go back to the
court again and get an extra 24, making amaximum of 96.
So over those four days, you can imaginesomebody's going to be interviewed a lot.
They're going to be interviewed over hours andthere's no rush.
There isn't that urgency that you'd see quiteoften in fiction.
(06:02):
Another thing is the showing of graphicimages.
You're not going to put a picture of a deadvictim in front of a suspect.
It's just not allowed.
It's seen as oppressive.
And going back to the same thing as if you'rebeing overly aggressive with a person you're
interviewing, if you start showing thempictures of dead bodies, etcetera, again, that
(06:27):
can be seen as oppressive and it could affectthe outcome of the interview and what can be
used from it.
So that won't happen.
So there's some of the things that I see inpolice fiction that are wrong.
Let's talk about how it is done, how policeactually interview people.
(06:47):
And what I want to do is just start off withexplaining the levels of interviewers in the
police.
And not every police officer is trained to the
same level when it comes to interviewingsuspects.
All police officers start off being classed aswhat's known as tier one.
So when police start their training, they willhave input into how to interview witnesses and
(07:12):
how to interview suspects.
And the suspect element is known as tier one.
And they will be taught what's known as thepeace model.
Peace being peace.
And we'll go into that in a bit more detail in
a bit.
When officers become detectives, they have a
week long course known as tier two, and alldetectives will have that.
(07:34):
And it's a more advanced way of interviewingthan would be on tier one.
And then there are advanced interviewers knownas tier three.
And this is a three week course, veryintensive course, and it's pass or fail.
Unless they prove themselves good enough, theywon't be passed.
(07:54):
And there is an extra tier known as tier five,interview advisors.
They would be used by the senior officers toadvise them on interview techniques and the
way forward and a strategy with an interview,and also the officers carrying out the
interview.
Tier one, tier two and tier three are the
interviewers and tier five is an interviewadvisor.
(08:18):
When interviews are conducted, it will be twoofficers that carry it out.
And sorry, but it won't be a DCI or a di.
Now, for your writing, if you choose to do
that, absolutely fine.
What I will always say when it comes to your
stories is it's your story and you write ithow you want to do it, but a strong believer
(08:42):
that you should know how it is done correctly,which is the whole purpose of these podcasts.
This is how it's done.
And your poetic licence, you do it how you
like, but it would not be, in real life, a DIYor a DCI interview and a suspect.
It certainly wouldn't be a superintendent likeI saw in a programme recently.
So two officers, it will be a DC and a DS ortwo DC's.
(09:07):
Now, most people who are being interviewed formurder will have a solicitor.
It's one of the rights you come in when youget booked into a police station.
You have the right to free and independentlegal advice.
And most of them, understandably, I would wantone if I was being arrested and interviewed
for murder.
Most of them, most people will elect to have
(09:29):
legal representation.
That doesn't necessarily mean that person is a
solicitor.
They could be what's known as a legal
representative, but they're a legalrepresentative or a solicitor.
And for ease in this podcast, I'll just referto them as a solicitor.
When solicitor comes to the police station,they will expect what's known as either pre
(09:50):
interview disclosure or pre interviewbriefing.
Essentially what that is.
The investigators tell the solicitor an amount
of information and it's down to theinvestigators how much they tell them.
But it should be enough that the solicitor canadvise their client.
If the solicitor turns up and the investigatorsay to the solicitor, I'm not telling you
(10:13):
anything, we're not going to tell you anythingat all.
It'll be very difficult for that solicitor toadvise their client.
Then they will advise their client to say, nocomment, do not answer any questions.
Under the law in England and Wales, if you goto court and at the trial, you come out with
something there that you haven't come outwith.
(10:35):
At a police station, a judge can direct ajury, that they can take that as an inference
of guilt.
But if the investigating officers haven't
given sufficient information to the solicitorto be able to advise their client, then the
judge may well agree with any application fromthe defence that that warning shouldn't be
(10:58):
given to a jury, because how could theirdefendant actually answer any questions when
they haven't been properly advised and thesolicitor couldn't advise them because the
police didn't give them enough information?To be able to do that.
So the police will give what's known as preinterview briefing or pre interview
disclosure, and that will be in the form of awritten document, a typed out document.
(11:22):
When it comes to murder investigations, whatwill also happen is that the giving of that
information to the solicitor will be recorded.
So they'll go into a police interview room,
turn on the recording, and the officers willread over that briefing to the solicitor.
And that recording will also take into accountany questions the solicitor asks and any
(11:46):
answers the officers give over and abovewhat's in that written briefing.
So that's a very important part of aninterview when it comes to murders.
Once the solicitor has that information, theywill then go and have a consultation with
their client.
And that can take a long time.
It can take hours.
It's quite boring sitting there waiting for a
solicitor when they're having a consultation.
(12:07):
But it has to happen.
It's only right, isn't it, that the solicitorhas time with a client to properly advise
them?Once that's all done, once all the
consultations are done, then they'll go in andthey'll start to have an interview.
Now, who else may be in an interview room?Well, if person being interviewed is under 18
years of age, so 17 or younger, they will haveto have an appropriate adult.
(12:31):
And that could be a family member, parent,guardian.
Sometimes it may be a social worker, has to bean adult who's 18 or over and not subject as
part of the investigation.
And they will be there to facilitate
communication with the person beinginterviewed.
That is help to explain things in a way thatthe person being interviewed might understand
(12:53):
if they're not understanding the interviewingofficers and.
And also to ensure that that person's beinglooked after fairly, so they're there for
their own welfare to make.
To look out for them.
Also, a vulnerable adult would also require anappropriate adult.
So that's someone who might be suffering frommental illness or have learning disabilities,
and that adult, again, will play the same roleas if that person were a juvenile.
(13:17):
Also, you might have an interpreter presentand they would obviously be there to interpret
the questions and the answers.
It's not unusual, and I've been there many
times where in an interview room we have allof those present.
We have an appropriate adult, an interpreter,a solicitor, the two interviewing officers.
So it can get a bit crowded.
At the start of an interview, everybody will
(13:38):
introduce themselves and the person beinginterviewed will be cautioned.
You do not have to say anything.
It may harm your defence if you do not
mention, when questioned, something whichyou'll later rely on in court.
Anything you do say may be given an evidenceand the interview will be structured and it
will be the peace model p eace that the policeofficers will be following, either stringently
or loosely.
(13:59):
But their training is to follow the peace
model.
So what does peace stand for?
Order P is for preparation and planning.
So a police officer shouldn't just go into an
interview, especially for something as seriousas a murder, without having a plan of what
they want to ask.
And that would include understanding the
(14:20):
evidence, understanding where this person fitsin with the investigation, so they can then
plan the questions that they ask, plan thetopics that they want to cover in the police.
As a saying, proper preparation prevents ****poor performance.
That is, if you want to do things right andyou have to think about them beforehand, then
(14:40):
the e is engage and explain.
So engage essentially means trying to build up
a rapport with the person you're interviewing.
It's very difficult to interview someone if
you don't have any kind of rapport with them.
And it's much easier for them not to say
anything to you or lie to you if you haven'tbuilt up that rapport.
And also it's about calming them down andputting them in a relaxed mood so they're
(15:02):
capable of talking to you and explain ismaking it clear to the person their rights,
what the purpose of the interview is, what mayhappen with the recording at the end.
So they're under no doubts as to what's goingon and why.
And then the a is for account.
The first part of an interview will always be
(15:23):
a very open question, hoping that the personyou're interviewing is just going to dump on
you, just tell you everything that they knowabout the offence, about the reason why
they're there, etcetera.
Very open question.
So it'd be something along the lines of,you've been arrested for the murder of John
Smith, tell me all you know about thatincident, something as open as that.
(15:44):
So they will tell you.
And then after that you say, well, thank you
very much for that.
We'd just like to go into a bit more detail.
You'll pick a point and you'll gochronologically along and you will go into
what's known as fine grain detail, going intomore detail about what they told you, really
drilling down in it, really trying to get aproper understanding of what was going on at
(16:05):
this time.
Who else was there?
Where was this happening?Then, after the account comes the challenge
phase.
The challenge phase is essentially where
you're putting to somebody.
The inconsistencies of their story,
highlighting the discrepancies in theiraccount, putting the evidence to them, putting
pressure on them to say, well, actually, okay,you've told me this, but I've got evidence
(16:27):
that's to the contrary.
I've got evidence that proves that you
committed this crime, I've got evidence thatproves that you've been lying, but you don't
want to be putting that to them too early,because at the moment you do, they're probably
going to shut down and they're not going towant to talk to you.
So you need to get as much information out ofthem as possible before you start hitting them
(16:48):
with your.
Hitting might be a wrong word.
Remember, we don't get aggressive ininterviews.
So you're not hitting them, but you're givingthem the evidence and you're saying to them
essentially why you think they're guilty orwhy you think they're lying, but you don't do
that too early.
That comes close to the end, and then c is
closure.
So once you've done all that, you've gone
(17:09):
through their account, you've been through thechallenge phase, then it's closure and
essentially is right, we've got to the end ofthis interview.
Is there anything else you want to add,anything you want to clarify?
And then the e is evaluate.
So you come out of the interview and you look
at what the person has said to you and arethere any investigative lines that we now need
to follow as a result of this interview?That is, we need to go and speak to somebody
(17:32):
to clarify a point.
We need to speak to somebody to prove them
right.
We need to speak to somebody to prove them
wrong.
Cheque some CCTV, because they said they were
to hear that kind of thing.
So as a result of what they told you, what now
do we need to do in the investigation?And that's evaluate.
Now, in the UK there, everybody has a right tosilence when they're being interviewed.
(17:56):
How does that impact what the interviewingofficers are doing?
Well, it doesn't really.
A lot of people you interview, I'd say
probably the majority, and quite a significantmajority of people you interview for murder
are going to say no comment.
And that's the advice that most solicitors
will give their clients.
(18:17):
But that doesn't mean when you've asked your
first question and someone says no comment,that you just go, okay, well, we might as well
leave it then.
You still have to ask the same questions, you
still have to cover the same topics and whatyou can't also do is take it for granted that
just because someone started off saying nocomment that they're going to stick to that.
Also a point I just want to cover isdisruptive solicitors.
(18:40):
Now solicitors are there to advise theirclient, they're not there to direct the
interview.
But you can have situations where solicitors
try and do that.
They try and be the ones that dictate where
their interview is going and that can be verydifficult for younger officers.
Officers with less experience might be drawnin by these solicitors, but in my experience
(19:05):
the easiest thing is to very, very quicklyjust shut it down.
Don't get into an argument with them, don'tget into a debate.
If they've said something that they believe isright and they're standing up for their
client, you just thank them.
Thank you Mister Jones.
Your observations are noted and they've beenrecorded on the tape and then you move on.
(19:26):
But if solicitors persist and they get in theway of you being able to do the job, it is
possible to get them removed from theinterview and from the police station, but
it's not something I would tend to normallyget involved in.
If you've reached that stage, you've lost it,it's gone wrong.
So normally it's just a case of listening tothem, acknowledging their concerns and just
(19:48):
moving on.
But solicitors are there to look out for their
client's interest and as I say, the majorityof them are going to, in a murder case, tell
their client to say no comment.
So how do you deal with that?
How do you get someone shifted from a positionwhere they say no comment?
Because that's what the solicitor advised themto get into a point where what you want them
(20:11):
to do is to commit to a story, to commit to anaccount.
How do you get them to shift from that whenthey've got solicitor sat next to them?
So a technique I used to use was apsychological one, it was designed to make
that solicitor's advice seem less good.
And the way I used to do that is by taking the
(20:36):
person I was interviewing out of the interviewroom in their mind and putting them in their
mind at court, mumps down the line, puttingtheir, putting them there at court.
And it would go along the lines of somethinglike this.
Right, okay, so that is the advice from yoursolicitor.
Now what I want you to do now is imagine we'reat court six months down the line and the
(21:01):
trial has started.
When we go there, you are more than likely
going to have to go into the witness box andgive evidence and you'll be giving that
evidence to the jury and it'll be the jury'sdecision as to whether or not you're guilty.
Now, they're going to know that at the policestation here whether or not you said anything.
(21:25):
And if you say nothing now and then in sixmonths time, you come out with something that
you could quite easily have told me.
Now if you're innocent, you can tell me now if
you didn't do it.
Easiest thing in the world, isn't it?
Just tell me now that you didn't do it.
And the jury are going to know that and
(21:47):
they're going to be looking at you givingevidence and wondering, why didn't he just say
that to steve back then?Why is it taking him all this time?
Is it because now you've got access to ourfull case file?
You know what we know and you've waited andyou've manufactured what you're going to say.
(22:08):
You've engineered it, you've fit it in aroundthe evidence that we've got.
That's what the jury are going to be thinking,isn't it?
They're going to be looking at you and that'swhat they're going to be wondering.
Put yourself in their position, forget thatyou're you now.
Put yourself on that jury and you are lookingat a person trying to persuade you that
(22:31):
they're telling the truth.
Trying to persuade you of an account that they
could have come out with six months ago,twelve months ago.
If it were true, if they were innocent, theycould have told Steve back then.
They waited all this time, really?And what about the fact your solicitors here,
your solicitor is not going to be in courtwith you.
(22:53):
He is not going to be sat with you givingevidence.
That's you and you alone.
And if jury don't believe you, it's you that's
going to prison and it's you that's going toprison for a long time.
So I want you to really think about whatyou're doing.
Think about how this is going to play out incourt.
(23:13):
Think about what those members of the jury aregoing to believe.
Are they going to believe you coming out withit then?
When you could have told me now if you'reinnocent, tell me now.
Give me your side of the account and when youget to court, it won't be the first time
you've come out with it.
The jury won't be sat there thinking, well,
(23:33):
he's had all this time to make it up, isn'the?
Because I know that's what I would be thinkingif I were on that jury.
What would you be thinking?Something along those lines.
Something to make them think about theconsequences of their actions.
Try to remove that comfort blanket of thesolicitor.
(23:56):
And that's what the solicitor is.
It's a comfort blanket that they can hide
behind.
But if you can strip that away and make that
advice seem less good, make them think aboutthe consequences of them not saying anything.
Honestly, it was such an impactful way ofinterviewing someone because they're seeing
the consequences of their actions.
(24:17):
They're seeing what could result of them not
just coming out with an account now.
And so many times, honestly, so many times by
going through this, by putting thatpsychological pressure on them of what could
go wrong if they don't talk to me now.
So many times it stopped a person from going
from no comment and it made them speak.
(24:38):
And the solicitor might say, remember my
advice?I've told you, say no comment.
But by then it's probably too late.
They want to speak because they know the
repercussions of them not.
And it was such a good technique.
I used it all the time.
I used it every time someone was saying no
comment.
I used to use it.
And so many times, so many times it workedbecause they saw what could go wrong.
(25:02):
And then there was a second technique that Iused.
Now, you probably have heard of good cop badcop.
It's that old trope where one officer's niceto the person being interviewed and the other
one not so nice, and a nice one sweeps in andgains the trust of the person they're
interviewing.
Because of that.
(25:23):
I'll keep that horrible one away from you.
You talk to me, I'll look after you.
Ignore them.
Now, I've never seen that done.
Whether or not it works or not, I don't know,but we don't use it, certainly not in the UK.
But I did use a technique of good cop bad cop.
But I was both.
I was good cop until I became bad cop.
(25:44):
And it used to work like this.
So first off, I would be looking to gain thetrust of the person I was interviewing,
basically trying to get them to like me.
And there'd be several ways in which you could
do that.
I perfected this when I was interviewing
terrorists and it was a. It was easier in someways because before, where I was talking about
having somebody in custody for four days.
(26:06):
When you're interviewing a terrorist, you have
them for 14 days, but you're not going to beinterviewing them for that whole time.
They will be some days, you'll be.
You'll be leaving them in the cell because
there's not a lot to put to them.
And I always made a point that whenever I was
there in the custody, I would be the one toget them out of the cell.
So if they needed to come out to have theirfingerprints taken, to be interviewed, talk to
(26:30):
a solicitor, whatever it was, it would be methat would go and open the door and get them
out.
Always with a smile on my face, always having
a joke with them, usually with a cup of tea inmy hand, building up that trust.
I would always find some common ground withthem, something that we could talk about, be
it football or what they're studying atcollege or what they do for a job or the area
(26:54):
they live in.
I'd find some kind of topic that I could
always go back to and speak to them andexplore and expand on building up that rapport
and that trust.
And what I would never do is be the person
that took them back into the cell, that lockedthem up.
I'd always get one of the custody staff, likea jailer, to do that.
(27:17):
Those bad people there, they're locking youaway, I'm bringing you out, I'm rescuing you.
And when you're in custody for that long,especially we're there for 14 days, they're
cut off from the outside world.
I'd always bring them little snippets of
what's going on in the outside world.
I'm their connection to the outside.
They don't like being in the cell, but I'mtheir connection to the outside, building up
(27:40):
their rapport.
And then when we got into an interview room,
the way I would sit in interview room, so Iwould always lean back in my chair and my
chair would be away from the table, so there'dbe a fair distance between me and them.
Always smiling, always relaxed in betweentapes, having a laugh with them, just trying
(28:01):
to make it so difficult for them not to wantto speak to me.
You imagine if you're in a situation whereyou're with somebody you don't like, how much
easier would it be not to speak to them?But then if you're with someone you do like,
who keeps asking you questions, naturallyyou're going to want to answer them and you're
going to have to force yourself not to.
(28:22):
That's the kind of environment I'll be trying
to build.
I'm sat across a table from someone who likes
me, trusts me and is going to find itdifficult not to speak to me.
And we would go through the evidence, we gothrough their account.
If you're dealing with terrorists, they're notgoing to talk to you.
In actual fact, they don't even say nocomment, they say nothing at all.
(28:44):
But you still got to go through it and you doit in a relaxed way.
Even when you put in evidence to them, you'reputting it in a relaxed way.
Now, they've been arrested for a reallyserious offence, but actually it's not that
bad.
There's this person, he's looking after me,
we're having a laugh.
He's not putting me under any pressure.
(29:05):
It's not as bad as I thought he was going tobe.
I actually feel quite relaxed about this.
There was one particular terrorist I was
interviewing, and on the days where we didn'ttake them out for interview, the solicitor
spoke to me and said, on those days whereyou're not interviewing him, he misses you.
This was a terrorist who was planning attacksthat would curl your toes.
(29:27):
But when I wasn't interviewing him, he wasmissing me.
It was all because of that.
That was me that was rescuing him from the
cell.
I was the one with the rapport, having a laugh
with him, giving those snippets from theoutside world, building up that trust.
And that's what made the next phase soeffective.
So that was me Goodcott.
(29:48):
But then we would get to that challenge phase,
the bit where you're challenging theinconsistencies of their stories,
inconsistencies in their accounts, laying theevidence in front of them, showing them why
they're guilty, why you believe they'reguilty, why you believe a jury would find them
guilty.
So you're putting that pressure on them.
(30:08):
But I wouldn't be introducing that as goodcop, I would now be bad cop.
So I would move my chair forward.
So instead of being four or 5ft from them, I
would lean in and I was probably closer to 2ftfrom them.
Smile for my face has gone completely.
I'm no longer smiling.
My tone has changed and it's all happened veryquickly.
(30:34):
1 second I was relaxed, smiling, now I'mleaning in.
My tone has changed, I'm no longer your friendand it's a shock to them.
It really becomes a shock to them because theyweren't expecting it.
There was no warning.
I changed very, very quickly.
And if we go back to what I said at thebeginning, when you're interviewing someone,
(30:58):
you're not being aggressive, you're not beingdomineering, you're not being overbearing, but
psychologically, if you change who you are asa person, from being their friend to being
very much.
They're not their friend.
You snap them out of their comfort zone.
I don't like this anymore.
This person was my friend.
(31:19):
Why is he being like this?
I don't like it now.
I don't like what he's telling me now.
I don't like the evidence that he's showingme.
And it was so effective, they wouldn't want tolook at you.
Look at me in the eye.
Look at me.
I'm talking to you.
Look me in the eye.
This is the evidence that I say proves you canguilty.
(31:43):
Now, you may have thought that when youcarried out this act that you were going to
die, but you're not going to die.
You're going to prison and you're going to go
to prison for a long time.
Are you prepared for that?
Is that what you wanted?Because I think that's what's going to happen
to you.
How are your family going to feel?
(32:05):
They're going to be ashamed of you.
They're going to be embarrassed.
You were going to do some horrendous things topeople.
You didn't care who they were.
This evidence here, this has convinced me that
you're guilty.
I think it's going to convince a jury.
I think you're going to go away for a longtime.
They're going to want to know.
(32:26):
What have you got to say about that?
What are you going to do?You're going to go there and explain to them
at court, what are they going to think?Why didn't you explain that to Steve back
then?Explain to me, why were you doing this?
What was your purpose?Look at this evidence here.
This is you.
(32:47):
This proves your guilt.
Look at this evidence here.
I mean, no doubt jury are going to be in no
doubt, are they?You're going to go to prison for a long time,
that kind of thing.
So your tone has changed.
You're no longer their friend and you're nothere with them now in the here and now.
You're moving them to the court.
(33:09):
You're moving them to that trial, and you've
made it seem like there's something reallyhorrible coming over the hill to them.
And then you start to build up that pressureon them.
So that probably the best thing they can donow is just talk to me.
I've given you all this time where I've beennice to you.
I'm no longer being nice to you.
(33:29):
And I'm making it clear what your future
holds.
And it don't look pretty.
Now, when I was interviewing terrorists, oneof the first things you talk to them about is
what's known as a safety interview.
So that's essentially you trying to find out
from them if there's anything in existencethat could harm either police officers or the
(33:50):
public.
So I'd ask the question, are you aware of the
location of any firearm, explosive orchemical?
And you'd put that to them.
And the terrorists, they won't answer you,
they won't say a thing.
But I'd always revisit it periodically
throughout, even during the relaxed time whenwe're going through an account.
(34:10):
Periodically I'd approach it, because it'simportant, isn't it?
If those things are out there, we need to findthem.
But with this particular terrorist, Irevisited it after I was bad cop, I was no
longer his friend, I was worse, I was hisfriend that was being horrible to him.
And by now he was in tears.
(34:31):
He had his legs up on the chair and he was
hugging his knees and he was crying.
And I revisited it.
Right, tell me if you know the location of anyfirearm, explosive or chemical.
Tell me now.
(34:52):
And he looked at his solicitor and he looked
at me and I just knew.
I knew he wanted to speak to me.
You want to speak to me, don't you?He kind of half nodded, looked at his
solicitor.
The solicitor said, I think I need a bit of
time with my client.
I said, no worries, and I looked at him, I
said, when I come back, I want you to answerthat question.
(35:15):
And he kind of half nodded again.
Colleague and I, we left the room.
You never get terrorists to talk to you.
If he now was going to tell me where some
firearms, explosive chemicals were, that wasgoing to be huge.
And it was probably the longest ten minutes ofmy life, standing outside, waiting for the
solicitor to let us know that they'refinished.
(35:35):
And the door opened and we walked in.
He was sat there still in that foetal
position, feet on the chair, hugging his kneesto his chest.
And I looked at him.
Do you know the location of any firearm,
explosive or chemical?He looked at the solicitor, he looked at me
(35:57):
and he said, no. My heart just sank.
I put him under that much pressure that he
needed to answer the question, but he neededjust to tell me no. He just wanted to tell me
that he didn't know the location of any ofthese items.
And it was so deflating.
(36:18):
I'd gone from thinking I'd cracked this al
Qaeda terrorist, making him want to speak tome, giving up the location of these things, it
was going to be huge, completely deflated.
That actually he didn't know.
And all he wanted to do was tell me no. Now,at the time, I was so disappointed.
(36:40):
I was still disappointed.
Now, what I think about it, I was so
disappointed.
But it was validation for my technique.
It was that building the trust, snapping himout of that comfort zone very, very quickly,
and then putting that pressure on them, somuch so that he felt he had to speak to me.
In this instance, it didn't help.
(37:01):
He didn't talk to us, he didn't explain
anything.
I mean, he went to court, got found guilty and
went away for a long time, but it didn't help.
But this interview didn't add anything to
that.
But that technique I used many times on many
other types of prisoner, and it did work.
It's that good cop, bad cop.
It's that bringing somebody in, making themfeel comfortable, and snapping them out of it
(37:26):
very, very quickly, and then building thatpressure on them.
And so many times, so many times it worked.
And you went from somebody saying no comment
to basically just telling you their side ofthe story.
And as I say, it's not about confession,that's not what this process is about.
It's not about making somebody confess tosomething.
It's about getting them to commit.
(37:48):
Commit to a story, to pin their colours to a
mask.
And as I say, it was so, so effective.
There you go.
I've given you what they teach you in the
classroom, which is just following a structureand two examples of techniques that I found
really useful in interviewing people andgetting them to speak to you when they don't
(38:10):
want to.
So I hope that that's given you some food for
thought for your writing.
Maybe you might want to use aspects of that,
or adapt it in some way for your detectives.
I don't know, but I hope you found that
useful.
So this is now the 6th episode, and it's a
third kind of format.
(38:31):
So we've.
We've had ones where it's just me talking.
We've had one interview so far, and we've had
the fiction watch.
Looking at Luther.
It'd be really helpful for me if you couldgive me some feedback on those formats, what
works for you, what doesn't, what you wouldlike to see in the future.
Because ultimately, these podcasts are aboutyou.
They're about helping you getting a betterunderstanding of how murders are investigated.
(38:56):
So anything at all, if you're in the onlinecommunity, just leave something in the forum,
just explaining exactly what you would like tolearn about or some feedback on the episode so
far.
If you're not part of the online community,
then I can be reached via Instagram or email,so I hope you found that helpful.
I've been Steve Keogh and I'll see you nexttime.
(39:18):
Thank you for joining me on another episode ofMurder Investigation for Crime Writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keough, and it's been apleasure delving into the world of murder
investigation with you.
Authenticity is key for crime writers and I
hope this podcast has provided you withvaluable insights and inspiration for your
storytelling journey.
If you found value in what you've heard today,
(39:38):
I encourage you to share this podcast withyour fellow authors.
Together we can elevate the standards of crimefiction and bring realism to the forefront.
If you have a moment, I'd also appreciate ifyou could leave a review you on your favourite
podcast platform.
Your feedback helps others discover the
podcast and join our community of passionatecrime writers.
Thank you for listening.
(39:59):
Until next time, keep writing, keep
investigating, and keep bringing your storiesto life.
I've been Steve Keough.
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