Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

450 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
During our first interview with Richardson (there were to be further meetings)
we spent about five hours with her. Richardson’s demeanour was impressive.
She looked pleased to see us when we arrived though she was not expecting
us. During the next five hours she appeared to try hard to answer our questions.
We kept firing difficult questions at her but all her answers were spontaneous
and seemed unguarded. Her vulnerable qualities were also evident.
She proved to be articulate and intelligent (her IQ score was above average).
Although psychiatrically well at the time of our interview, she was very vulnerable
to interrogative pressure and this was clearly evident on psychological
testing. Further testing repeatedly demonstrated her tendency to avoid conflict
and confrontation when faced with pressure. Our concern was also about
Richardson’s mental state whilst in police custody in 1974, which included her
state of withdrawal from illicit barbiturates on which she was dependant. We
expressed great concern about the reliability of Richardson’s confession in our
reports to the Prison Medical Service.
However, in spite of the firm conclusions we had reached in our reports,
the Home Secretary made no mention of them in his address to Parliament
in January 1987, when he decided to remit the case of the Birmingham Six
back to the Court of Appeal but refused to do the same for the Guildford Four.
There was some strong media coverage about our findings and in August 1987
we submitted fresh reports directly to the Home Office with the permission of
Mr Logan by whom we were then instructed. Our revised reports were partly the
basis on which the Home Secretary decided to re-open the case. An important
development was that a social worker colleague of ours, Don Steuart-Pownall,
had been able to trace the whereabouts of the police surgeon, Dr Makos, who
had examined Miss Richardson in police custody in December 1974. One of us
(MacKeith) interviewed Dr Makos in Belgium in August 1987; he stated that
he had injected Richardson with pethidine shortly before her first confession
to him on 4 December. Several months later, when interviewed by the police
for the second time, the doctor withdrew his revelation to Dr MacKeith, which
had been repeated to the police during their first interview with him. In fact,
whether or not the police surgeon had administered pethidine to Richardson,
which she incidentally had no recollection of, may actually have been of no great
significance. Even if he had not done so, she would have been suffering from
barbiturate withdrawal at the time of her confession.
In fact, Richardson had been abusing various drugs for several months preceding
her arrest on 3 December 1974. On the day of her arrest she had been
taking Tuinal barbiturate tablets, which were obtained two days prior to her arrest.
She reported to us that taking drugs alleviated thoughts and feelings that
made her unhappy. She had made attempts to come off drugs but experienced
a period of tremulousness, depression, physical weakness and restlessness.
Richardson’s Confession
Carole Richardson was arrested at about 7.00 p.m. on 3 December 1974. She
claimed to have taken about 20 Tuinal capsules that day. Her interrogation
began the following day; the time at which it commenced is disputed. The police