Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

602 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
he was prepared to go along with it. The officer gave him homework to do,
where he had to write down what he thought could have happened to the
victim.
4. Social isolation. Mr A said that after his arrest on 8 February, he had a great
need to speak to his family, and particularly his girlfriend. He explained
that he needed their reassurance and support but this was not possible
and it upset him a great deal (he seemed distressed when discussing this).
According to Mr A., another problem with the isolation was that he could
not exercise physically. For many years he had been very keen on sports,
and fitness and exercise were very important to him. The deprivation of
exercise was, he said, distressing to him. Speaking to the officer was in his
view much better than staying in the cell on his own.
5. Increased confusion. Mr A claimed that as the police interviews progressed
he became increasingly confused about his movements and whereabouts
on the night of the murder. The officer would spend day after day asking
him to explain the missing ‘two hours’. He told me he had even become
confused about an alleged aggressive incident at Kopervik School, which
was mentioned at his remand hearing. The headmaster had mistakenly
accused him of an incident that he had nothing to do with, but at the time
of the police interviews he falsely believed that he had done it even though
he had no memory of the incident.
6. Somatic symptoms. Mr A claimed that during the police interviews he
had bad headaches, which he was not used to. He thought the headaches
were caused by officer’s extensive smoking, although he recognized that
the stress of the interrogations may also have had something to do with it.
During the first day of custodial interviews the officer had asked Mr A if he
minded his smoking. Mr A did not want to upset the officer and agreed to
his smoking, but later regretted it when he realized how much the officer
smoked and the inordinate length of the interviews.
7. Fear of the officer in charge. Mr A claimed to have been frightened of officer F,
but at the same time respected him and thought he might be able to ‘frighten
the memories out of the brain’. He did not claim that officer F was in any
way aggressive towards him, but viewed him as a person in authority whose
‘voice went up and down’.
INTERVIEWS WITH INFORMANTS
Officer E
I interviewed officer E for approximately three hours in May 1998. The interview
took place at Stavanger Police Station. The interpreter was present
throughout the interview. It proved difficult to interview officer E. He appeared
to be very anxious and defensive. His command of the English language seemed
quite good, but he commonly reverted back to Norwegian. When I asked him
questions about his behaviour during the interviews of Mr A, he was in the
habit of looking for the reply in his notebook rather than giving a spontaneous
answer.