1.1 Meet the psychological team

Hello, my name is Doctor Zoë Walkington, and I work at the School of Psychology and Counselling here at The Open University. For many years now, I have worked with police detectives on the psychology of police suspect interviews. And this is a fascinating area, and one of the reasons I wanted to develop this course was to introduce learners to the psychology of police investigations and specifically, to spark your interest in how psychology can apply to the criminal justice system.

Hello, I’m Professor Graham Pike, and I also work at the School of Psychology and Counselling here at The Open University. Like Zoë, for many years now, I’ve been working with the police, though I tend to work in a domain of witnesses rather than suspects. Indeed, several years ago, I made a course very similar to the current one that followed a police investigation where the focus was on obtaining evidence from witnesses.

You are going to be taking part in a murder investigation. We have developed a fictional murder investigation that you will follow week-by-week. Now whilst the case is based in England, it’s not our intention to be entirely legally accurate to the legal system of England and Wales. Instead, we want you to focus on the key psychological concepts.

During the course you’re going to experience what it’s like to be a police officer trying to interview a suspect. You’ll also get to think about what the experience might be like for the suspect themselves. All the way through, you’ll be learning about the potential role of psychology in these legal processes.

You will be part of a team of investigating officers. The female detective is D.S. Sund, And you’ll see her conduct some of the interviews.

The male detective is called D.I. Bullet, and he will also be joining the interview team. Both Sund and Bullet are being managed by the senior investigating officer, or SIO who’s Lyndon Harris. The senior investigating officer leads on all major criminal investigations and has to make strategic and important decisions about the wider investigation, such as when to make arrests. Of course, there are many other officers involved in the investigation alongside this core team. For example, there are the officers who attended the scene, the crime scene staff, and staff in the forensic science services, all of whom have an important role to play.

We wanted this case to be as realistic as possible. In the real world, in investigations, mistakes get made. And so we’ve included some mistakes in this investigation. So if you notice, as you go along the course, perhaps some things that the officers do that cause problems for later on in the investigation, make a note of them. We’ll revisit those at the end of the course.

We very much hope you enjoy the course. Very shortly, you’ll meet the SIO, who’s going to give you your initial police briefing that’s going to kick off the case. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]