Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

94 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
That’s just selfish . . .
Let’s face up to facts. Accept responsibility.
You couldn’t accept responsibility for your missus and kid.
There are people who go out and break into offices . . . don’t do anybody harm, ...but
there are those that go in and cause terror and that’s what you have done. And I
wonder whether you are responsible for [the other suspects] being in their situation.
Am I getting through to you? Am I making you understand? I thought I could talk to
you . . . but when I heard some of those things you had done, I was horrified . . . But
why have you become the motivator? Why have you become so aggressive? Why
have you had to sink to the depths of violence and force that you have on people?
You got some shame and boy, you should have.
Incest Case
Figure 4.3 provides an example of an incest case where three factors (intimidation,
robust challenge and question style) have been removed. This was the only
allegation of incest in the sample. The father, aged 55, was accused of raping
his daughter on a number of occasions until she reached puberty. A male and a
female officer conducted the interview and a solicitor was present throughout.
In the absence of the two ‘overbearing’ factors this interview opens with a
moderate use of soft challenge. There are no obvious peaks immediately before
an admission; rather, a succession of minor admissions was achieved as a result
of the sustained effect of this one factor, that reaches extreme and marked levels
in tape 2 (the only example of the extreme use of soft challenge in the entire
sample).
This represents a striking example of the type of tactic recommended for
offences of this nature: tactics that are concerned with reassurance and shame
reduction, often delivered in a low tone yet firmly emphasizing the evidence in
the case (Gudjonsson, 1992a). Examples of reassurance and shame reduction
include:
Erm before we go into that I’ll just reassure you that myself and my colleague erm
are used to dealing with these sorts of offences erm that’s our every day job.
Erm I know it’s difficult to talk about these things, it’s embarrassing and everything
else but just be assured that you won’t embarrass my colleague and me.
Right look we’ll just switch the tapes off, I’ll just say to you before we do, myself
and my colleague, we’re not here to judge you okay?
I mean we said before that the department where we work in deal with these
sort of things all the time and we understand how these things can build up and
happen.
You know and I think we’ve gone perhaps beyond what could be explained away by
accidental touching or any other reason so why why don’t you try and sort of come
to terms with the fact that this has been sexual attraction even though it is your
own daughter and there’s nobody saying that you don’t love your daughter that
this is something that can happen to people that love their children. It don’t mean
to say that you don’t love them its another situation isn’t it? Okay it shouldn’t of
happened.