Tapes, transcripts and trials

Date01 October 2018
DOI10.1177/1365712718798656
AuthorKate Haworth
Published date01 October 2018
Subject MatterArticles
Article
Tapes, transcripts and trials:
The routine contamination
of police interview evidence
Kate Haworth
Aston University, Birmingham, UK
Abstract
This article addresses a serious, but currently unacknowledged, problem of evidential con-
sistency regarding police-suspect interview evidence. It sheds light on flaws in current criminal
procedure through the lens of linguistics, focusing on key stages of currently accepted practice
which fly in the face of what linguists have long known about language. It demonstrates that, in
stark contrast to the strict principles of preservation applied to physical evidence, interview
data go through significant transformation between their creation in the interview room and
their presentation in the courtroom, especially through changes in format between written and
spoken text. It argues that, despite the safeguards provided by PACE 1984, there is nonetheless
a level of routine distortion and contamination unintentionally built into the current system of
presenting police interviews as evidence in England and Wales.
Keywords
criminal evidence, language as evidence, police interview, ROTI, transcription
Introduction
Police investigative interviews are a vital part of the criminal justice process: they are an essential
element of the investigative evidence-gathering process, and in many jurisdictions will also go on to
form an important piece of evidence in court. The formal records of these interviews are therefore of
great significance. In terms of how these records are used, in the England and Wales (E&W) context the
legal framework is such that the credibility o f a witness can be destroyed by counsel highli ghting
differences between what is said in court, and what was (recorded as being) said at interview. In a
skilful cross-examination this can discredit their entire evidence, not just the often minor part which is
(apparently) inconsistent. The effect can be devastating, especially for defendants, and so the accuracy of
interview records is therefore crucial.
Yet despite this, there are real causes for concern in the current treatment of E&W interview data and
the methods by which interview records are produced. I will argue that the data are (unintentionally)
Corresponding author:
Kate Haworth, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK.
E-mail: k.haworth@aston.ac.uk
The International Journalof
Evidence & Proof
2018, Vol. 22(4) 428–450
ªThe Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1365712718798656
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distorted and misinterpreted as they pass through the criminal justice system. In stark contrast to the
strict principles of preservation applied to physical evidence, this article will show that interview data go
through significant alteration and contamination along the route from interview room to courtroom.
They undergo various transformations in format, being converted between spoken and written modes
and subject to various other processes along the way. Troublingly, the legal system treats all the different
versions as unproblematic ‘copies’ of the original. This article will critically examine this process,
highlighting the serious implications in terms of interference with criminal evidence; something which
is currently entirely unrecognised in the criminal justice system.
To illustrate the issues under discussion , this article will focus on E&W police interview s with
suspects. Procedures vary across other jurisdictions and data types, but the principles discussed here,
and the problems highlighted, have much broader relevance and applicability.
Data and method
The work presented here draws on three distinct strands and data sources, in order to provi de a
thorough analysis grounded in both academic theory and professional practice. It thus incorporates
multiple perspectives, both internal and external to the process being scrutinised. The initial starting
point was the author’s previous experience as a barrister in E&W, practising criminal law for both
prosecution and defence. Barristers gain direct insight into both sides of the criminal justice
process, thus acquiring a professional understanding of what is required for the police and Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS) to build a sufficiently robust case to the required evidential standards,
along with practical experience of dismantling the same. It was my experience of presenting
transcripts of police interviews in court as part of the prosecution case, and professional concern
over the integrity of this process, which led to investigating this further from a theoretical, aca-
demic perspective.
Second, it analyses data in the form of audio recordings and transcripts of police-suspect interviews.
This dataset includes both the official police transcripts and my own transcripts of the audio data. The
majority of these were collected from several police forces as part of a wider research project (Haworth,
2009),
1
with permission granted to use these data for research purposes. All personal or identifying
material has been anonymised, and only data from closed cases was collected, to avoid any possibility of
interfering with ongoing proceedings.
This dataset also includes data from the Harold Shipman case in 1999–2000. Due to the high-profile
nature of his trial for murdering 15 of his patients, audio recordings of two of his police interviews were
made available to the press.
2
In addition, the subsequent public inquiry
3
made available a full transcript
of the lengthy trial,
4
including the parts where these interviews were presented to the court as evidence.
This therefore presents an unusual opportunity to observe the same police interview data being recon-
textualised at different stages of the criminal justice process (although that is not a primary objective
here—for deeper analysis of this specific dataset, see Haworth, 2006, 2010).
For the third strand, in order to gain insight into professional practice regarding interview tran-
scription, a visit was arranged to a group of transcribers (known as ‘ROTI
5
clerks’) within a police
force with whom I already had research contact. They had agreed to assist our Masters students with a
research project, and I took the opportunity to conduct an informal focus group discussion with the
1. This research project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council award PTA-030-2004-00907.
2. Original source: BBC News (2000), although audio files sadly no longer operable.
3. The Shipman Inquiry, chaired by Dame Janet Smith DBE, 2001–2005. Documentation available at: www.gov.uk/government/
organisations/shipman-inquiry (accessed 20 August 2018).
4. Archived content available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090808155206/http://www.the-shipman-inquiry.
org.uk/trialtrans.asp (accessed 20 August 2018).
5. Record of Taped Interview—see further below.
Haworth 429

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