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Conducting Tough Interviews 243

Table 7.7 The interviewer’s body language

Circumstances Your body language

When the suspect does not tell the truth • Pointing with the fingers
• Looking away
• Head moving slowly left to right
• Leaning forward
• Intruding on the suspect’s personal space
• Hand over mouth
• Pull ear lobe
• Brush lint off your clothing

When the suspect tells the truth • Palms upward gestures with the hands
• Looking at the suspect and smiling
• Head moving slowly up and down
• Leaning backward
• Increasing the suspect’s personal space

When the suspect uses a manipulator such • Look carefully at the movement
as brushing dust off his clothes • Mimic the movement (mirroring)
• Ask if the question is worrying him

Critical balancing point • Mimic the suspect’s body language

DEALING WITH FISHING QUESTIONS

Sometimes a suspect will say something along the lines:

Example :
• ‘You tell me what you know and I will give an answer.’
Or
• ‘I am not prepared to answer general questions: let me see the evidence you have and I

will answer it.’

In such cases, the suspect is simply trying to find out how much you know so that he can
deal with it without giving anything else away.

Your response should be along the following lines:

Example : ‘I am trying to find out whether you are telling me the whole truth or not. It is a bit
like being asked by Customs whether you have anything to declare. If you don’t tell me the
whole truth now, I have to draw my own conclusions that you are not being honest. Now
please tell me everything, and I mean everything, about…’

A common fishing question is along the following lines at the pivotal point:

Example : ‘I did not do it, but as a matter of interest, what could happen? Would the person
be fired or what?’