Page 228 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

Conducting Tough Interviews 229

HOW DID YOU FEEL?

The Sales Manager of a company admitted to falsifying purchase invoices from an advertising
agency and converting the benefits to his own account. Investigators believed that the
Sales Director had intimidated the man into the fraud and that his confession was contrived
to protect his boss. This appeared even more likely because the Sales Director was doing
everything possible to impede the investigation and recommended that the Sales Manager
should be allowed to resign and not even asked to pay back what he had stolen.

The investigators showed the Sales Manager a number of invoices and asked how he had
falsified them. He replied ‘I just did this on the copier’. This was clearly not the case, as the
forgeries required careful alignment on a PC. This was pointed out and the Sales Manager
asked to provide a demonstration of the process he had used to print them. He tried but
failed to do so and became very agitated. He then made the incredible unsolicited denial ‘I
can promise you that the Sales Director was not involved in this. I only told him a couple of
days ago what I had done.’

He was asked to relay the conversation he had supposedly had with his boss. He said ‘I just
told him I had forged some invoices.’

The Investigators asked: ‘How did you feel when you told him this?’

Response: ‘What do mean?’
Investigator: ‘How did you feel’
Reponses: ‘How should I feel?
Investigator: ‘You tell me’
Response: ‘He knew nothing before that’
Investigator: ‘What did he say when you told him’
Response: ‘I don’t understand what you are driving at’
Investigator: ‘What did he say’
Response: ‘I don’t remember’
Investigator: ‘Was he angry?’
Response; ‘Not that I recall … he didn’t say anything’
Investigator: ‘Bill, we know what you are trying to do, but it’s hopeless isn’t it? You don’t
even know how to make the false invoices do you? Just tell us the truth’
Response: ‘His son did them on his computer and he told me to put them through. He
kept most of the money’

He then went on to make a detailed confession and produced overwhelming evidence
against his manager.

CLOSED AND LEADING QUESTIONS

Closed, or leading, questions can be answered by a simple binary: ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The problem
is that they often suggest the answer required and thus enable the subject to judge the extent
of your knowledge.

Example :
• ‘Did you go into the filing room?’
• ‘Is this in your handwriting?’
• ‘Did you speak to John Jones about this?’