Interviews and Statements
Interview questions test structure, voluntariness and documentation. The examiner wants to see that you can obtain reliable information without pressure and produce a statement that survives challenge.
Types and setting
An interview gathers information; an interrogation challenges. Witness, complainant and subject interviews have different objectives. Choose a private, safe setting, remove distractions, and be clear about your role and that you are not a police officer.
Voluntariness
The common law confessions rule asks whether a statement was made voluntarily, free of threats, promises and oppression, by a person capable of understanding. It binds persons in authority, and an investigator may be treated as one where the subject believes the investigator has power over their situation. Do not offer leniency, threaten, deceive about consequences, or keep someone against their will.
Structure
Use a recognised model: plan and prepare, engage and explain, obtain a free narrative, clarify with open questions, probe inconsistencies, and close. Start broad ('tell me what happened'), then funnel to detail. Save leading questions for confirming facts already given. Cognitive techniques - mental reinstatement, recall in a different order - improve accuracy for witnesses.
Statements
If a written statement is taken it must be in the witness's own words, in the first person, with a voluntariness clause acknowledging no threats or promises, every correction initialled, every page signed, and a read-back or witnessed reading. Note the start and end time and who was present.
Worked example
A supervisor reports missing cash. You interview a cashier as a witness first, taking a free narrative, then clarify the till procedure and the times she left the counter. When a discrepancy appears you ask a neutral question - 'help me understand how the drawer was $200 short' - rather than 'why did you take it?'. The written statement records her explanation and the gap in the audit, and she initials every change.
Traps
Leading from the first question; writing the statement for the person so it reads like a report; failing to note that the interviewee was free to leave; and interviewing a minor or vulnerable adult without an appropriate support person.