Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

478 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
on drugs and alcohol, felt very miserable and depressed most of the time and he
had made a number of suicide attempts. He felt very inadequate and coped by
telling people numerous lies about himself in an attempt to impress them. This
temporarily appeared to raise his self-esteem and became a way of life over a
period of many years.
Long claimed that whilst in prison he had greatly matured, he felt more
confident in himself and had overcome his need to tell lies in order to impress
people. He claimed not to have committed the offence of which he was convicted,
even though he had confessed to the murder at the time. He claimed
that at the time of the police interviews he was mentally unstable and could
not cope with the police interviews. He had never been interviewed by the
police before, was frightened of being beaten up by the police, wanted the interviews
to stop and thought the police would send him to hospital if he
confessed.
The conclusions from my assessment were as follows.
� Long was of High Average intelligence. He did not prove to be unduly suggestible,
compliant or acquiescent on testing. I found no evidence of mental
disorder during my interview with him. However, the results from the
MMPI were consistent with a diagnosis of personality disorder, which by
its nature must be of long standing.
� It seemed from the assessment that Long’s mental state had improved
markedly since his arrest in 1979. Following my interview with Long I
formed the view that it was essential to assess, retrospectively, his mental
state at the time of his arrest and police interviews, in order to be able
to assess the reliability of his confession in 1979. His mental state and
psychological functioning in 1992 was probably a poor indicator of his vulnerabilities
when he was interviewed by the police in 1979. On the basis
of my own assessment, I considered it probable that he had been suffering
from clinical depression at the time of his arrest. This aspect of Long’s
case was being concurrently investigated by my psychiatrist colleague
Dr MacKeith.
Dr MacKeith carried out a detailed and thorough assessment and found that
Long had suffered from depression at the time of his interrogation in 1979.
This finding was to become crucial at the appeal hearing in 1995 and the court
heard the testimony of Dr MacKeith. There was also written evidence from
Dr Bowden, another defence expert, which agreed with Dr MacKeith’s diagnosis.
A psychiatrist commissioned by the Crown, Dr Joseph, concluded that
Mr Long suffered from a personality disorder. All three psychiatrists considered
Mr Long’s confessions to be unreliable.
The judges concluded:
We simply do not know the impact the medical evidence might have had on the
jury. It is sufficient to say that we were impressed by that evidence supported as
it was by records of mental disorder well before the date of the murder.