The 39% Problem: Why Written Interview Records Fail Justice

In Ireland, suspects have been recorded on video since 1997. Interviewers are still required to write down everything by hand at the same time. Dr Adrian Gates spent his career as the national lead on investigative interview training in An Garda Síochána — and his doctoral research has now quantified the cost of that contradiction.

In this episode of Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, Dr Ivar Fahsing speaks with Dr Adrian Gates about his journey from confession-focused detective to Ireland's foremost advocate for the Enhanced Cognitive Interview; the moment a Detective Superintendent asked him, in front of the assistant commissioner, 'Are you telling me we have been doing it wrong all this time?' — and what he said; and the findings from his research: an accuracy rate of 39%, 4,481 omitted items across 15 interviews, and a process in which interviewers are actively stopping people from talking in order to keep up with their own pen.