Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Psychological Vulnerability 513
did not amount to a psychiatric disorder, combined with an abnormally high
level of compliance and borderline IQ, was admissible and cast doubts on the
safety of Kane’s conviction.
The case of Roberts is important in that the Court of Appeal accepted ‘the
emerging field of science relating to the phenomenon of false confessions’, which
included the psychometric measurement of suggestibility and compliance. The
principle set forward in this case is that when deciding issues of reliability and
the safety of a conviction the court ‘must take into account’ all that is known
about the phenomenon of false confessions as well as expert evidence as to the
‘mental condition’ of the appellant. The ruling extends that decided in Ward,
namely that there is now no need for a recognized diagnostic category, such as
personality disorder, in determining a relevant mental condition. The abnormal
results from relevant psychometric tests relating to personality, such as the
Gudjonsson Compliance Scale or Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, are sufficient
for determining a mental condition that has a bearing upon determining the
safety of the conviction.
The principles developed in Roberts were subsequently applied and extended
in the case of Hall. Here it was ruled that a recognized psychiatric diagnostic
category is neither necessary nor sufficient in determining the admissibility
and reliability of a confession. Their Lordships defined the limits for the cases
in which psychological and psychiatric experts in cases of disputed confessions
should be heard. These involve the following criteria.
� The mental condition or disorder must be of the type to render a confession
potentially unreliable.
� There must be a very significant deviation from normal.
� There should be a history of the condition or disorder predating the making
of the confession, which provides an explanation for its existence.
In the case of King, the borderline intelligence would not have been sufficient
on its own to cast doubt on the safety of the conviction; it was the combination
of borderline intelligence and abnormally high suggestibility and compliance
that were the overriding factors in their Lordships view. This was in spite of
the fact that Mr King appeared to cope well with the cross-examination when
he was in the witness box.
The 13 cases presented in this chapter clearly show that it is wrong to assume
that only persons with learning disability or those who are mentally ill make
unreliable or false confessions. I have had access to the IQ score of 12 (92%) of
the appellants discussed in this chapter. In one of the cases (Roberts) the IQ
score was not given in the judgment, but he was described as being of ‘below
average intelligence’, which means that his IQ score was probably in the low
average or borderline range. His ‘below average intelligence’ was not raised as
a significant factor at the appeal. The mean IQ score of the 12 appellants where
the IQ score was known was 86 (range 70–112). Six (50%) had an IQ score that
fell in the borderline range (70–79); the remaining IQ scores all fell in the low
average range or above. The cases demonstrate the importance of personality
factors in potentially rendering a confession unreliable.