The glaring deficiencies in Stephen Miller's confession were overlooked and they needed to be, as his admissions were manifestly absurd. He did not stand a chance as the whole criminal justice system failed not only him and his co-accused, but the memory of Lynette White and society too. The criminal justice system requires confessions to function, but when Miller surrendered his long term interests for short term respite from officers he regarded as persecutors, he followed in a long list that disgraces British justice.

More than fifty percent of convictions in England and Wales at that time involved confessions and most of them were obtained within two days. In other words, the norm was not only to confess, but do so quickly; and this takes no account of offences which are taken into consideration. A measure of how unreliable that can be is the case of notorious prison informer Paul Jarvis, who asked for more than 1500 offences to be taken into consideration, which included several offences that he was innocent of. He had the perfect alibi for some as he was in prison at the time. Nevertheless, these false confessions cleared up offences, which made the police and criminal justice system look good as they were seen to be obtaining convictions for these offences. Even Jarvis did well out of it – four years for several armed robberies that wasn't even his fist offence of such magnitude. Confessions, notwithstanding whether they are true or false, make the system tick; they became an end in themselves rather than just another piece of evidence to be placed in the wider context of what really happened and that made miscarriages of justice like this inevitable, but where did this over-reliance on confessions come from?

*****

Tomas de Torquemada, the first Inquisitor-General of the Holy Order of the Inquisition, was aware that very few people refused to submit to those in authority. He saw that frequent strong-arm questioning was likely to lead to the wrong conclusions. For Torquemada frequent questioning should only be used on the most stubborn interviewee, but how should such interviewees be defined? Does that simply mean someone who refuses to say what is wanted? Frequent questioning results in variable answers, but as Miller's case among other prove, it does not mean that the suspect was lying. Anyone could be induced into making admissions – even false ones – through stress-inducing interrogation, which was clear to Torquemada over half a millennium ago. Consequently, he knew that such interviewing cannot distinguish between the innocent who deny and protest and the guilty who do so. The criminal justice system cannot distinguish between them either.

Torquemada was certainly no angel and doubtless procured several false admissions himself, but he reserved stress-inducing tactics for the most stubborn. Today's unethical interviewers start from a presumption of guilt and the opinion that securing a confession – however it is obtained – validates their view and worse still justifies their behaviour, especially if the confession is believed. Centuries ago confessions had to be validated by torture, but that was used to justify the preconceived ideas of interrogators. Shamefully, even today torture is used in supposedly civilised jurisdictions – water-boarding for example was routinely used to extract information and confessions in Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, which was legitimised by convictions secured on the basis of them in military courts. Such methods cannot be used in civilian courts, but the psychological pressure used is no less effective.

Miller's confession was demonstrably false – even semi-competent scrutiny should have easily demonstrated that. It was eventually acknowledged that it had been obtained unlawfully through oppressive interviewing, among other things, so how was it allowed to become the focal point of a scandalous and entirely preventable miscarriage of justice when section 76 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act specifically prohibits oppressive interviewing it? The Crown Prosecution Service had several opportunities to review it and conclude that it could not be relied on, but it failed to do so repeatedly. David Elfer QC demanded a standard on suggestibility that was absurd . He believed that Miller had to agree with absolutely everything put to him to be suggestible. Nobody does and it shows that an experienced Queen's Counsel did not understand that a person who is abnormally suggestible is simple more likely to accept something put to them, especially by a figure in authority than an average person. It did not and never has meant agreeing with absolutely everything. If lawyers – experienced ones at that – do not understand what suggestibility is and indeed what constitutes oppression, how can juries be expected to? One of the most worrying features of this case is that it occurred in an era where the rights of vulnerable suspects like Miller were supposed to have been scrupulously protected.

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 2nd 2008)