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Conducting Tough Interviews 249

very seriously and will leave no stone unturned to find the truth. We believe that at least one
employee has been dragged into this [Pause] and this is what we are currently investigating.

‘Before we conduct interviews, we do a great deal of background research. We keep
surveillance on policyholders who claim they have been injured, take videos of them running
around, playing tennis and doing all sorts of things they say their injuries prevent them from
doing. We interview neighbours, family members and so on and we build up the evidence
until we are really sure of our facts.

‘As far as employees are concerned, we audit the claims they have handled very carefully
and look for patterns. We sometimes keep surveillance on them and see them meeting
claimants. Sometimes we see money being handed over. In other cases we have observed
them going to nightclubs together and doing other things that would make it clear to the
employee that the claimed injuries are fraudulent. Sometimes, with the permission of top
management, we will monitor the employee’s office telephone, inspect his computer and
check his files. We take great care to establish the facts. [Pause]

‘Sometimes employees get pressurized into cooperating with false claims and, when this is
the case, we will try to support them if they are honest with us. [Pause]

‘In other cases, we find employees drift into these cases. Not because they are really bad
people, but they just drift, often without realizing the seriousness of what is going on. But at
the end of the day, the claimants blame the employees to save their own skins. They do this
because they think they can embarrass us into not taking action. This is never the case. But I
see lots of really good employees in serious trouble because of crooks.’

You should carefully monitor the suspect’s reaction as this opening is delivered (Table
7.8).

Table 7.8 Most likely reactions to an opening statement

Reactions indicating innocence Reactions indicating guilt

Listens carefully but does not appear threatened Does not listen carefully

Relaxed body language Moves body into a defensive position

Finds the story interesting or even boring Nervous body language

May ask if you are accusing him Unlikely to challenge the statement

If the suspect’s reaction is indicative of guilt, you should plan to make a soft accusation.

Example : ‘The trouble is that the employee involved may believe he can succeed by not
telling the truth, and that the outsiders will cover for him. The fact is that this investigation
will look into everything and we are determined to get to the truth. If the employee
concerned is not prepared to tell the truth when we give him the chance, so be it. He must
know that the game is up.’

If the suspect’s reaction continues to be passive, you should continue with a bridging state-
ment, which moves from an indirect accusation to the specific.