Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

90 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
Det. Constable ‘They’re not though are they because they’re not resolving
theirself, you’ve obviously got some sort of problem in relation
to the church?’
After repeated denials the emphasis moves towards the girlfriend,
the time of the fire and how it was started.
Det. Constable ‘You were there.’
Suspect ‘I didn’t set any fires.’
Det. Constable ‘Why say to [girlfriend], the fire started at three o’clock then?’
Suspect ‘I just presumed it was started at three o’clock, if it was alight?’
Det. Constable ‘Why? Why? Why? Why three o’clock at quarter past four?
Why not quarter past three? Why not half past three? Why
not quarter past four?’
Suspect ‘I don’t know.’ (reply not shown on transcript)
Det. Constable ‘You said how the fire started at three o’clock. You told [your
girlfriend] that and [she] told me that. [She’s] told me that.
I didn’t dream three o’clock up. The reason you said the fire
started at three o’clock was because you set it.’
Suspect ‘I did not set any fire.’
Det. Constable ‘There is no doubt whatsoever, at three o’clock...’
Suspect ‘I wasn’t carrying any kind of matches or lighter on me at that
time.’
Det. Constable ‘It doesn’t matter. You can get a match from anywhere. It’s
no hardship is it? Why should it be matches? I’ve not mentioned
how the fire was started. I didn’t say it was started with
matches. You said that not me. So why should it be matches?
Because you started it with matches.’
Suspect ‘I didn’t set any fire.’
Det. Constable ‘You say it was started with matches. I’ve not said any of that,
you said that. So how do you know that? There is only one way
you could know that that fire started at three o’clock and that
fire was started with matches and that is because you was
there at three o’clock and you set fire with matches. There
isn’t no other way of knowing it. There isn’t no other way of
knowing it.’
Suspect ‘Not at all any more. I didn’t set no fire okay.’
Det. Constable ‘You’ve got to, you’ve got to understand son, you’ve got some
sort of problem. I’m only here trying to help. I’m a policeman,
I’m trying to do my job.’
Suspect ‘Well maybe, but I know in myself I didn’t set that fire.’
Det. Constable ‘Well why are you saying three o’clock and matches then?’
Suspect ‘Because I presumed it started then ...’
The officer interrupts the suspect and has raised his voice
considerably,
Det. Constable ‘Why, why presume? Why matches, why not a lighter, why not
bloody petrol.’
Suspect ‘I don’t know, it’s just an example isn’t it.’
Det. Constable ‘Why?’
Suspect ‘Of a way of starting a fire.’
Det. Constable ‘Why? I mean somebody could have gone in there and poured
petrol all over the place and set fire to it. Couldn’t they?
Couldn’t they, I mean it could have been started with petrol,
diesel, anything, paraffin, a lump of rag, a pile of newspapers,
and it could have started at any time that afternoon ...but
you, out of the back of your mind you draw out the time three
o’clock, started with matches. I never said it was started with