We talk to Mick Confrey about investigative interviewing.
Though a former Greater Manchester Police (GMP) detective , now working in industry in the field of investigations and interviews, one of his bugbears is former police offering police-style ‘off the shelf’ ways of interviewing, that just don’t work away from the police. Mick begins instead by speaking of two ways of interviewing. First, the cognitive interview, which fits witnesses mainly, ‘because they want to give information; but you can also have suspects willing to talk’. The other, conversation management model, is mainly aimed at people more resistant to speaking, ‘and you would manage the conversation’. The inventor of that is Prof Eric Shepherd, a director like Mick of Cheshire-based Intersol Global; and the other director is another former GMP detective, Ian Hynes. As a specialist in interviewing and advising on interviews, while at GMP he worked on serious crime from child sexual abuse (and adults reporting such abuse they suffered as children) to robbery and murder. Now in the private sector he feels some ‘very poor’ interview training is on offer, ‘model-focused’, textbook and not really suitable for private business. As he puts it, rather than as he drily puts it becoming part of a long list of ex-police officers churning out the PEACE model (whereby police prepare, engage and explain, account, close and then evaluate), ‘and telling private industry this is what you need’: “Our ethos is that we will listen to the client.” In a neat piece of symmetry, that is what much of interviewing is about: listening, rather than imposing your personality or list of questions on the interviewee, or tricks such as low seats so that you tower over the interviewee, or Gestapo-like lights in the eyes.
But to return to Mick, speaking to Professional Security over a coffee in a pub overlooking Chester racecourse. Listening to the client means hearing what regulations and legal guidelines cover the sector, such as banking, or indeed an agency that regulates a sector. “Then we will devise a programme of training and consultancy for you which will make your workforce more effective, based on the principles of the PEACE model of investigative interviewing.” Not all investigators outside the police need all the police-like skills; or, they need them in a different mix, Mick argues. They may be auditors, or pure investigators; or HR (human resources); anybody whose job is obtaining information from someone else, even if they don’t think of themselves as interviewers. Besides, workplace interviewers don’t have the interviewee in custody. Yes, police have limits to the length of an interview (a couple of hours) and they must allow breaks and there’s a limit to the time police can hold a suspect, whereas the workplace theft suspects are in the office or warehouse nine to five (or whenever). Yet as Mick points out, for that very reason the workplace interviews should be streamlined, to maximise the amount of information gathered (that, crucially, the investigator can then check) without dragging – which upsets everyone in the workplace, guilty and innocent alike. Hence the skills of ‘effective listening’, and note-taking. Unless you can take shorthand, you need to take down on paper what matters – and be able to make sense of it afterwards! Hence “note taker” rather than necessarily trying to scribble a narrative. Mick gives the example of a shopping centre officer or store detective, or a specialist in credit card fraud. Given the cuts to police, there’s more expectation that the store detective presents the police with a professional package: the CCTV footage, witness statements, exhibits, all ‘bagged and tagged, ‘so the police will have the full package, which makes their job a lot easier’. Likewise at events, Security may as a condition of entry to the arena search customers. If someone is found with 300 ecstasy tablets, evidence has to be bagged and presented to police. A private investigator has to get information from witnesses and client, done fairly and with integrity so that the contents can satisfy a tribunal or court.
Besides the mechanics of the interview, Mick speaks also of the mind-set of the interviewer. He warns against thinking that you know what’s happened before the interview. As Mick says, if you’ve been a store detective or an investigator for a long time, you’ve seen most things. “The danger is you close your mind to listening, and you decide before you speak to the suspect or witness and therefore the interview becomes null and void. Take a warehouse theft case; CCTV shows X taking a parcel to his car in works time. X is the thief. Except when asked he may say (and prove) he paid for it; or the manager said he could take it. Much of Mick’s company training, then, is about open-mindedness, and not pre-judging, and gathering checkable facts. Mick wouldn’t accuse someone of lying; rather, if told the warehouse man was out for an hour, and CCTV shows he was out for two, Mick would then ask for an explanation. Again, the interviewee may have a reason. Or in a shop, CCTV may show you walking past the till without paying, but is there footage of walking out the door – what of the intention to pay? As solicitors take on private prosecutions for defrauded people whose cases aren’t taken on by police, investigations must be in line with the law, otherwise they are wasted; the Crown Prosecution Service can take over a private prosecution, or indeed halt one. Mick suggests that it’s a false economy to put pressure on someone to confess to that warehouse theft, let’s say, and fire them: “In reality the problem will start again, pretty soon. The idea of a good investigation is to find out what the issues within the workplace, and how to prevent it in the future.”
What of the Inspector Morse effect – with its equivalent in forensics, the CSI effect. Just as we see forensic investigators on TV solving crimes (within the hour), so Morse and Cracker and so on always get their man. Mick replies first that no-one above the rank of detective sergeant would do an interview. Yes, Prime Suspect is a brilliant series, but in truth the superintendent manages the investigation: the interview, CCTV, forensics, the crime scene. For instance, if the forensics people are going over a house; if the suspect answers a simple question that he lives there, there’s hardly the need for forensics to find DNA or fingerprint evidence to place the suspect there. Just as a investigator can contaminate a crime scene by walking clumsily, so an interviewer must be careful not to contaminate the witness’ testimony, Mick says. The memory of the witness, as he puts it, is a scene to be protected. Likewise, Mick teaches that the memory is a powerful tool for the interviewer; you don’t need that list of questions, to tick off as you go along; that way you might miss something. OK, if an interviewee is resisting, go to your list of questions; but most people have a story to tell, as they may have prepared one if they have heard of the investigation beforehand. “The trick is to go into the interview with an open mind.” Professional Security recalls the writing of the fraud investigator Mike Comer, who details the room furniture, how the interviewer sits, and so on. Mick replies that you are trying to create an atmosphere where the interviewer feels comfortable. So invite the interviewee in, shake their hand, offer them a glass of water if they’re dry, outline the process, so that by the time you ask the first question, the interviewee is settled. He notes that if you have the traditional interviewer on one side of a table, interviewee on the other, you block half the sings if the interviewee is uncomfortable. Equally, the interviewer is only able to show half the signs of open body language. To return to the P of PEACE; you do lots of preparation. Mick gives the example of the police officer in the interview room with solicitor and suspect (and perhaps mum and dad), who presses the tape machine and it doesn’t work. He now looks stupid. Test your equipment before you want it!
Professional Security offers an admittedly trite example; a corporate building where something’s been stolen from the fridge. As Mick says, it could be the cleaner’s taken the yoghurt out because it’s out of date. He offers a better example: costly thefts from a warehouse. He recalls a case from police days of theft of stone; over-ordered by the thief, and sold cheaply to allow the buyer to under-cut rivals. That case required interviews to ask the buyer where he sourced his stone; and a geologist to say which quarry it really came from. As for cop shows, Mick makes the intriguing point that so many are historic, or pre-1980, such as Life on Mars. Then police really did act like that; but not any more. Mick suggests Scott and Bailey (which Ian Hynes advised on) as the most true to life of recent years. Thanks partly to TV-cop interviewing, some misconceptions are common, Mick argues. Such as: that interviewing is about getting people to confess. Rather, as Mick has already said, it’s about gathering checkable facts, to tell whether someone is telling the truth or not, ‘because people confess falsely, for all kinds of reasons’. A confession can blind a poor investigator, Mick adds. If a theft was on July 1, was the suspect at work according to the time-sheet?! To take that warehouse theft example, a group of thieves (with families and mortgages) may put up a young single lad up as the culprit. And again, you’ve not got to the root of the problem. Here Mick points out there are other interview models, designed to get a confession, which he says are coming increasingly under scrutiny.
Though an interview specialist, Mick agrees there’s a place for CCTV, overt or covert. Why ask someone for their whereabouts when you can sit them in a room, play footage of them putting a box in their car boot, and ask ‘what have you to say’?! That said, Mick says: “There are a lot of lazy investigators out there, doing sub-standard work.” Mick argues for proper, thorough, robust work that can stand scrutiny by the decision-maker, whether court or tribunal. As someone who’s been to 11 countries in 2015, from Brazil to Australia, he reports that abroad they’re becoming a bit jaded by ex-UK police officers trying to sell off the shelf interviewing packages that are not, Mick adds, fit for purpose. Professional Security brings up Inspector Morse and the like again; do they give viewers the wrong idea that everybody can do it? Everybody can do it, Mick replies, with correct training; and a good interviewer can become a better interviewer.
You need some record – and that’s no lie
What equipment does the interviewer need? Mick Confrey goes back to what are the guidelines and laws that the client works under. For many, recording the interview is not an option; they don’t have the power, or the interviewee might not agree. Here, an employer might think to write into the terms of employment that an employee has to allow such an interview. However you record an interview, you have to retain it, notes, audio or video, as a tribunal or court may want the investigator to explain themselves, perhaps months later. What about lie detectors? Mick starts with the polygraph, which measures physical response to questions. Accuracy is about 80 per cent; some higher; but the reality is that the British Psychological Society has advised against their use, as they aren’t 100pc accurate. Yes, other ways can detect changes in a person’s body; and different people have different responses. Machines will take a baseline response and then spikes; unfortunately, adds Mick, someone who keeps himself current on this subject, none are 100pc accurate. He describes briefly the two camps on detecting deception: ‘cognitive load’ and ‘physical reaction’. The idea behind cognitive load is that you give the interviewee a second task; the extra work for the mind makes it harder to carry through the lie. Both camps are working on products. They may be in use at airports, to screen for suspiciously anxious people. But are they anxious because they are terrorists, or they fear flying? In the case of a workplace theft, as staff are asked into the interview room one by one, even if you have nothing to hide, you may show signs of nervousness. As Mick says, the machines only take you so far; you then need a human, and a properly constructed interview, to ask the right questions to find out which. Mick doubts that we will ever get a machine to detect a lie for sure; there is no such thing as ‘Pinocchio’s nose’. If someone is uncomfortable when you ask a question – what did you do on Tuesday? – and shifts in their chair, you ask more (checkable) questions.
Whistle-blowers need de-briefing
Professional Security recalls to Mick Confrey the builder’s merchant fraud case in the June issue. Briefly, a privately-owned small yard brought in former policeman Rod Repton to investigate suspected thefts. Derby-based Rod by asking staff soon narrowed down the suspects, who admitted wrong-doing. Significantly, the owners felt hurt – not only that the thieves had betrayed trust, but that the other staff had felt something was going on, but had said nothing. Mick commented that it can be hard for someone to ‘step outside the group’ to blow the whistle on such theft – although like others, Mick doesn’t like the term whistle-blowing. It’s one thing for a company to run a hotline for staff or anyone to report suspicions; and another to have in place what Mick calls ‘the shortest journey’ between someone making the call and being debriefed properly. As for social media, which investigators will tell you they turn to first in many cases, Mick agrees that it might be part of your evidence gathering. In that case of workplace theft, you can ask, why is there a picture of you in a new leather jacket with the security tag on?! The interviewee might reply that he was only bragging, to look big. Or he might admit stock theft.
Definitions
The interviewer sits ‘at the heart of the investigation’; the interview is part of the investigation. Mick Confrey makes the point that the interview can include asking why theft is so easy; which can offer ideas for improving security.
About Mick Confrey
The only industry body he’s a member of is the International Investigative Interviewers Research Group. Visit www.intersolglobal.com.
