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Other Applications 387

The little black book (almost like the white van)
Innocent people on the edge of frauds often keep ‘little black books’ or private notes to protect
their backsides if things go wrong. You should always ask about these.

Example : ‘I have been involved in lots of cases like this and usually innocent people keep little
notes, or bits of correspondence as insurance. What did you keep?’

THE PA TO THE SALES DIRECTOR

A terrifying woman who was the PA to the kept personal notes. Can we see these in
sales director who had just been fired for confidence?’ She subsequently produced
fraud was asked: ‘Jennifer, you are a very diaries for the past five years that proved her
clever and prudent person and will have boss’s dishonesty beyond doubt.

Try to get the little black book: someone will always have one

Interim summary

When all detail has been exhausted, you should prepare a summary of the witness’s story. In
a simple case, an annotated Mind Map or bullet point list may be sufficient. In more complex
cases, you should consider drafting an outline Proof of Evidence or file note. Either way, you
should have a list of:

• the people involved;
• the actions that took place;
• the objects involved;
• the conversations that occurred;
• other detail;
• emotions, thoughts and feelings.

You should then move on to the next stage.

Detail on critical factors

You should again use memory retrieval cues to obtain detail on people, objects, actions and
conversations etc. that form part of the witnesses’ stories. You should cross-reference this
detail with other evidence and resolve discrepancies.