Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Psychological Vulnerability 491
(I am not convinced it was a clear memory that he experienced—rather they
appear to have been visual and perceptual experiences), which persisted
intermittently during his prison sentence. Even when seen by Dr MacKeith
and I, 23 years later, he seemed unsure about whether or not his ‘memories’
of the murder were real.
On the basis of our assessment in this case, Dr MacKeith and I believed that
it was unsafe to rely on the confession as evidence of Evans having committed
the murder of Judith Roberts.
The Appeal
Following the submission of my Psychological Report, and the Psychiatric
Report of Dr MacKeith, Justice commissioned Professor Michael Kopelman, an
expert on amnesia, to read all the papers in the case and provide a report. The
prosecution later commissioned a psychiatrist, Dr Phil Joseph, to assess Evans
and prepare a report. All four of us agreed that Evans’ alleged amnesia had been
misdiagnosed by the pre-trial doctors and that his confession was unreliable.
The appeal was heard in November 1997 before Lord Chief Justice Bingham,
Mr Justice Jowitt and Mr Justice Douglas Brown. The judges pointed out that
the prosecution case against Evans at trial rested entirely on his own confession.
In their judgment they stated:
We must also accept that the appellant’s confessions were, as confessions, entirely
unreliable. Such was the consensus among four very distinguished experts called
to give evidence before us. While these experts did not enjoy the advantage enjoyed
by the doctors who testified at the trial of examining the appellant within months
of this offence, they were at one in regarding the diagnosis of amnesia as unsound.
Evans’ conviction was quashed on 3 December 1997, and he was freed after
spending 25 years in prison.
Comments
This is a most extraordinary case. As a result of his psychological problems
at the time (e.g. low self-esteem), in 1972 Evans walked into a police station
and gradually persuaded himself that he had committed the murder of Judith
Roberts. His confession was voluntary and not coerced by the police. In fact,
they were sceptical about it at first. The process of how this happened is well
illustrated by the extracts presented from the police statements. The misdiagnoses
of psychogenic amnesia by doctors and the subsequent use of pharmacological
abreaction interviews were undoubtedly instrumental in Evans being
convicted. Gudjonsson, Kopelman and MacKeith (1999) suggest that there were
four main factors which facilitated the wrongful conviction in this case.
� The failure to call a police surgeon and solicitor at the police station.
� The failure to consider possibilities other than amnesia (e.g. a false memory)
to explain the poor recollection for the offence.