Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Author

Download this course

Share this free course

Forensic psychology
Forensic psychology

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

3.2 How well did the police do?

Download this video clip.Video player: ou_futurelearn_psychology_vid_1028.mp4
Copy this transcript to the clipboard
Print this transcript
Show transcript|Hide transcript
 
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Did you solve the crime or, like DI Bullet, did your investigation lead to identifying an innocent suspect?

Although we have written DI Bullet as somewhat of a caricature, his investigative approach of trying to find evidence that supports his initial conclusions and of using biased investigative techniques unfortunately has led to wrongful convictions in real life – as you saw in Week 1 when looking at the Innocence Project. DS Sund’s investigation was a lot more accurate and did lead to identifying the correct suspects – and has hopefully demonstrated to you that developing investigative techniques that avoid leading questions and bias identification parades can have a very positive effect indeed.

Once the staged crime had finished, The Greater Manchester Police (who kindly volunteered to take part) were called in to investigate it. The only evidence they had access to was that which they could gather from the eyewitnesses. Unlike you, DI Bullet and DS Sund, they did have access to more than just two witnesses, do you think this would have made their jobs easier or harder?