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Introduction 21

The distinguished statistician – like some other boffins who make pronouncements on
lying – has probably never interviewed a crook, terrorist or ne’er- do-well in his life and appar-
ently misunderstands the nature of a ‘confession’.

In most of the cases Mr Matthews seems to have reviewed, the defendants did not confess
along such lines as: ‘It’s all down to me Guv. Only you are clever enough to have caught me
and you should get a promotion out of this.’ What they did do, is prevaricate, lie, refuse to
answer questions, make contradictory statements and small admissions, thus leading a jury
to convict them. Subsequently, the interviews were judged unreliable, mainly because of
procedural mistakes by the officers or lawyers concerned. Convictions were not overturned
because the defendants were innocent or because confessions had been forced from them and
it is misleading for the statistician to suggest this.

Academic research on deception, like that on multiple orgasms, must be treated
with suspicion

LAWYERS KNOW THE TRUTH

Most people would presume that if anyone can expose deception, courts, lawyers and the legal
system can. Unfortunately, this is seldom the case and what takes place in court is usually a
sanitized version of pseudo truths. But, these days, before a serious case even gets to court in
the UK it has been dissected by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which applies a dual
test. The first is whether or not prosecution is in the public interest and the second is whether
or not there is a good chance of obtaining a conviction. Determination of what is and what is
not in the public interest appears to be an imprecise science. If you are a high-profile television
presenter or politician who, ten years ago, is suspected of having put it about in places where
it should not go, the chances are you will face a high-profile arrest and prosecution with the
media in tow. You are relatively less likely to face prosecution if you are a nobody and all you
have done is ripped off your employer for a few million. To a large extent the CPS has usurped
the role of the courts, but its decision-making process is opaque.

To the cynical observer the term ‘public interest’ might mean ‘publicity value’ in promot-
ing the impression that the criminal justice system is a deterrent and that our political leaders
are interested in crime. These days the criminal justice system is mainly driven by funding,
budgets and out-turns and, to that extent, falls into the same hole as the UK National Health
Service.

THE GREAT UNWASHED DON’T KNOW THE TRUTH

At the end of the line are the poor so-and-sos who day in, day out have to face and deal with
deception, sometimes in difficult or violent circumstances. The most exposed of all are police
and other law enforcement officers who are hog-tied by deftly crafted processes inflicted by
academics, promoted as ‘initiatives’ by politicians, enforced by lawyers and supported by the
smelly socks. Today, to effect an arrest a police officer may have to complete up to 38 separate
forms and if he says one word out of place or makes a procedural mistake his career may be at
an end. It is no wonder that experienced detectives are finding nice comfortable posts in quiet
backwaters to wait out their retirement.

The irony is, that of all the parties involved, front-line police and other investigators have
probably the best insight in how to get to the deep truth, using legitimate persuasive skills, but