One Way or Another? Criminal Investigators’ Beliefs Regarding the Disclosure of Evidence in Interviews with Suspects in England and Wales

Police officers' use of evidence to elicit admissions in a fictitious criminal case

“…Stated differently, these investigators planned to alter between different evidence disclosure modes in the same interview. This finding differs from the outcome of previous studies in which the investigators have reported to prefer one evidence disclosure mode over the other (e.g., Smith & Bull, ; Walsh et al, ). This difference may be attributed to the type of questions posed in the past studies exploring investigators' preferred evidence disclosure modes.…”

“…That is, suspects are typically made aware of the evidence held by the investigator before their statement is obtained. In contrast, in England and Wales, investigators tend to reveal the evidence either gradually (drip‐feeding the evidence) or late (in a lump at the very end) in the interview (Smith & Bull, ; Walsh, Milne, & Bull, ). In such interviews, open‐ended and specific questions are posed to obtain the suspect's statement before disclosing the evidence (for a detailed description of the PEACE model [Planning and preparation, Engage and explain, Account, Closure, Evaluation] adopted in England and Wales, see Milne & Bull, ).…”

How the Timing of Police Evidence Disclosure Impacts Custodial Legal Advice

“…Currently, the police show a preference for strategically releasing evidence during the interview (King, 2002: 53;Smith and Bull, 2014;Walsh, Milne and Bull, 2015) -an approach that the courts support. 52 Yet, preventing lawyers from knowing the evidence against their client can greatly limit their ability to advise their clients before the interview and as a consequence, suspects will not benefit from case-specific legal advice.…”

“…5 Likewise, psychology research recommends withholding evidence from suspects as it is easier to catch suspects lying when the suspect is not aware of the evidence against them (for example, Hartwig, Granhag and Luke, 2014: 30-1). In view of these recommendations, self-reports and in-depth interviews of police investigators reveal a preference for disclosing the evidence to the suspect gradually during the interview, or late in the interview, as opposed to early in the interview (King, 2002: 53;Smith and Bull, 2014;Walsh, Milne and Bull, 2015). Indeed, police investigators in England and Wales are trained to gradually present evidence when interviewing suspects (Walsh, Milne and Bull, 2015).…”

“…The study presented lawyers with hypothetical police station scenarios in which the police disclosed all of their evidence before the interview began (as lawyers prefer), early in the interview (before asking the suspect for an account), gradually during the interview ('drip-feeding' the evidence while questioning the suspect), or late in the interview (after questioning the suspect thoroughly). We selected early, gradual, and late disclosure during the interview because past researchers have categorized police disclosure strategies during the interview in this way (for example, Walsh, Milne and Bull, 2015;. Additionally, we manipulated the scenarios to include either a client who claimed to be innocent or one who claimed to be guilty of the suspected offence, as this is a further factor likely to influence lawyers' advice to the client.…”