Every day we use interview skills without even knowing it during general conversations and within employment, enforcement, commerce and legal sectors we often find we are conducting investigative interviewing. Are we good at it? asks David Kearns, MD of Expert Investigations.
Well, that is a bad interview question to begin with. โTell me where you think our investigative interviews skills and weaknesses areโ? That is a much better question. It is an open question that will generate more points for questioning, give reasoning, opinions and some structure. When our clientsโ are going to conduct an investigative interview, either with a witness or suspect we usually find that they have no interview strategy, no structure, no order of evidence or a timeline of events.
As a former police detective, (who also conducted interview training),interviewing is second nature as I conducted it on a daily basis, but within the commercial fields, interviewers can find the issue daunting as they are not often skilled in the techniques.
Usually clientsโ will be using closed questions as opposed to open ones, Who, where, how, why what? In suspect interviews they will always to be ready to show their โevidenceโ at the earliest opportunity instead of keeping that vital information to the latter stages of the interview, when after careful questioning the interviewee should have placed themselves in a position to show inconsistencies, untruths, falsifications and contradictions. At this point you can then โprobeโ with your questions and gradually introduce evidence.
Taking witness statements can be unnerving for the interviewee and putting them at ease and explaining all facets of the interview is key to winning the trust of the individual. Your witnesses will often know a lot more than they think and there are techniques to draw that information out of them in an unobtrusive means. Time and preparation are key components when interviewing. By giving sufficient time to deal with the interviewee in detail will save time later and produce a more beneficial result. When clientsโ have utilised our investigation services to gather evidence then good time management of the interview will allow sufficient time to deal with introducing that evidence at your pace and at the relevant time.
Consider tape recorded suspect interviews and produce a full transcript. Experience during our commercial investigations continually proves the benefit of taped interviews for all parties, but be aware of the procedures to follow. I have seen commercial criminal cases dismissed by the CPS because of poor interview notes and statements so before interviewing consider PEACE: Preparation, Engage / Explain, Accounts, Conclusion, Evaluate. Treat your interviews as a vital component of any investigations as the interview can be the mechanism to pull all of the aspects of your investigation together putting you and your organisation in the strongest and most advantageous position for the enquiry.
