The risk to testimonial integrity of moral judgements in police interviews

This article examines the expression of moral judgements as one source of risk to the strength of the suspect's testimony produced during an investigative interview with police. The analysis draws upon the notion of a 'police preferred' version of events, which is produced as an alternative to the suspect's version of events. The analysis focuses on the language used by the participants and involves the use of linguistic tools to identify the discursive practices that police officers use in their attempts to construct their version of events in such a way that it is 'oriented to' by the suspect. The interview data are analysed in relation to interactional resources such as topic management tools and formulations in order to demonstrate the effect of asymmetrical speaker roles on the 'voluntariness' of the suspect's confession. In this way, the article examines the extent to which the individual and unique testimony provided by the suspect is reinterpreted through a police model of moral behaviour so that the testimonial limits and central themes are consistent with a police version of events.