NewsBiscuit

The Home Office has issued new guidelines to police detectives interrogating suspects in criminal cases that will involve asking trivia questions before moving onto the cross-examination about their investigation.

Justice minister Jack Straw said ‘Research has shown that by giving a suspect some easy general knowledge questions as a warm up round, they gain a sense of status and pride in their ability to correctly name the second man on the Moon or the capital of Canada. They are then more likely to excitedly blurt out the correct answer to more significant questions such as the identity of Mr Big or at which port the cocaine is being smuggled into the country or whatever…’

During a pilot project most suspects correctly answered questions on current affairs, motoring and pop trivia, although there was some controversy when the press got hold of the tape of one suspect struggling to answer the question ‘Which England players missed their penalties in the 1990 World Cup semi-final penalty shoot out?’

At this point one of the detectives grabbed the suspect’s hair and banged his head on the table shouting ‘Come on it was Waddle and Pearce wasn’t it? Admit it, why are you covering up for them? How much are they paying you?’

When asked later about how they extricated a signed confession from this subject, the officers opted to ‘Pass’ on every single question.

ianslat

Posted: Nov 24th, 2007 by ianslat