Ship of Fools: Lying to the Police

Thread: Lying to the Police Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Again, sadly. we have a case where it appears the police were lied to about the disappearance of a youngster, where the liar already knew the fate of said individual . Why are we seeing this phenomenon repeated over and over these days ?

I watched an interesting documentary recently about past criminals who have lied through their teeth at interviews . Re-watching the film with modern lie detection techniques ,(body movements and tiny facial muscle twitches), reveals that the person in question is lying .

So why do some folks still think they can get away with it, and in doing dupe the whole country into carrying out futile searches .

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

I have no idea for the case in question, but in my experience it often takes the people who commit such crimes some time to really admit to themselves the truth of what they have done, let alone anyone else.

Of course the victim and the rest of the family are the worst off in cases like this and the perpetrator is the one responsible; they have to take the consequences.

But whatever might have led the perpetrator to kill, maim or torture another human being, unless they are a complete psychopath, they usually see themselves, just as most of us do, as ordinary decent folk by their own lights, and often find it very hard to believe it was actually them that did it. I know several people in this situation. [Votive]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Nothing new here. The police are past masters at this. They have seen and heard it ALL. She was the prime suspect the moment she made the phone call or soon enough: a three year old disappearing from a secure building at night? As Eutychus said, we are all capable of mind boggling rationalization, denial, self-deceit. We fool no one.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

An infamous case around my way when I was growing up: a woman disappears on her way back to work, distraught husband appears on camera to appeal for her to come back, massive manhunt, body is found... and the husband is arrested, charged and later convicted of her murder.

And the police were, covertly, all over him like a rash from the moment he reported her missing. In the majority of missing persons, it's not due to the criminal behaviour of the partner/parent. But sometimes it is, and it's what the police have to rule out first.

Lying about it isn't (necessarily) due to self-delusion. It's about providing a different, plausable narrative which fits the facts. Missing wife? She's not buried in a shallow grave in the woods, she's been having an affair and has run off.

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

Why do people lie to the police about committing crimes? So they won't get found out of course.

Posted by Arrietty (# 45) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Why do people lie to the police about committing crimes? So they won't get found out of course.

Yes, it's as simple as that. And I think anyone is prone to try and wriggle out of it if they can. The whole miserable Chris Huhne saga, which ended up with both Huhne and his wife Vicky Pryce serving time, started with him refusing to admit to having incurred 3 speeding points because it would result in a ban.

When someone apparently disappears, I think the close relatives are always prime suspects. But if the police aren't sure enough to make an arrest, they can't discount the possibility that the disappeared person is still alive. Also, while the public turned out to search for the little boy in the hope he would be found alive, I'm sure they knew they were also looking for evidence to find out what had happened to him if he had come to harm.

[ 19. January 2014, 15:18: Message edited by: Arrietty ]

Posted by Amos (# 44) on :

On the other hand, how long did it take the Boston police to realize that Charles 'Chuck' Stuart was lying about the murder of his wife? They certainly weren't 'all over him' from the beginning.

Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :

Sometimes they realy do think they are clever enoug to get away with it..

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
Sometimes they realy do think they are clever enough to get away with it..

Indeed so . This was one of the things that came across on the TV programme .

One of the 'lie indicators' was in fact a pleasure response shown by slight muscle movements around the eye socket . A guy who'd hired a hit-man to kill his wife spent a year cleverly lying about it. He could be seen to show the classic twitch response as the enjoyment of thinking he was out-smarting everyone couldn't be hidden.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Again, sadly. we have a case where it appears the police were lied to about the disappearance of a youngster, where the liar already knew the fate of said individual . Why are we seeing this phenomenon repeated over and over these days ? ...

Forgive my asking, but why is this so shocking, or for that matter, surprising? Weighed against killing one's child, lying to the police about it strikes me as a much less serious offence. Does it somehow make murder more OK if the person fesses up to it?

Posted by Clotilde (# 17600) on :

Sometimes I think people simply cannot accept what they have done, and so 'lie' ... There is a limit to what truth, at times, we can bear.

So sad.

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Why do people lie to the police about committing crimes? So they won't get found out of course.

But why talk to the police in the first place? In this case, she did not have to report the boy missing. If anybody asked about him, she could have said he was staying with relatives while his sister was ill or something.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Hey mods, is it really OK to discuss an ongoing case like this? It just seems weird to me, just after somebody has been arrested, to start claiming that anybody did anything.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

hosting/

The bare facts of the case, and they are the bare facts, are in the public domain, so I think they are fair game for some limited discussion.

The main question in the OP, however, is a general one:

quote:
Why are we seeing this phenomenon repeated over and over these days ?

and it seems to be generating plenty of general discussion.

Speculating about the specifics of this case or others not yet brought to court probably isn't a good idea (and indeed I made it clear that I wasn't doing this in my own response to the OP, despite the fact that I know people who on the face of what we know, have done precisely what this woman is accused of) but there is plenty to discuss without doing that.

I hope that makes sense and provides a general heads-up to contributors. Thanks for asking; if you have any more questions about moderation or lack of it, please take them to the Styx.

/hosting

[ 19. January 2014, 16:49: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

OK. It's just that we don't know that anyone did lie to the police. Anyway, I'd better not say any more, to avoid being a hypocrite!

[ 19. January 2014, 16:51: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

Funny how there's nothing about the police lying here - they frequently do. In the UK it's not as bad, but certainly in the US, the police are firmly on the side of the powerful and I don't blame minorities for lying to them. If you're a black trans woman, for example, the police are not on your side and you have to cope with that. Cf Cece McDonald.

Obviously, lying about where someone is when they've disappeared is wrong.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

In France, there is an offence of obstructing the course of justice, but not one of perjury. There's some food for thought.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

But we don't know that that happened. FFS, enough with the speculation already.

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
On the other hand, how long did it take the Boston police to realize that Charles 'Chuck' Stuart was lying about the murder of his wife? They certainly weren't 'all over him' from the beginning.

They weren't, because they thought his severe gunshot wound was not likely to have been self-inflicted. They learned otherwise when his brother went to the police about 2 months later. (See Wikipedia article.)

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

q, we all know what happened, all that's left is the testing of forensic evidence for a legal verdict. The poor woman's redemption in this life is another story.

Posted by Clotilde (# 17600) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
In France, there is an offence of obstructing the course of justice, but not one of perjury. There's some food for thought.

Yes, that is an interesting thought. Thanks for contributing it.
[Smile]

Posted by Chamois (# 16204) on :

When it comes to traffic offences, people lie to the police more often than not. Lord Chief Justice Hewart was once quoted as saying (back in the early 1960s I believe) that in many traffic cases the court's job is "to decide how two cars stationary on opposite sides of the road came into collision with one another".

No change in the last 50 years, then.

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
Sometimes they realy do think they are clever enoug to get away with it..

Sometimes they are.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I'd say never. And I never say never. Plod ain't called that for nothing. But do NOT pop up on their radar. They are elephantine in their memory, slow, dogged and a hundred ordinary cops vs. a genius like the Unabomber or Son of Sam is like letting a hundred mindless bots that can communicate vs. one general purpose robot with a Cray processor hunt for a shadow on a playground. The bots win frighteningly fast. PPP. Proper Police Procedure. People get away with murder because they keep it simple (which includes do it ONCE), so simple that half of all murders are never detected (yeah, yeah, anecdotal, but I only ever quote from two sources, three historically: New Scientist, the BBC and the Daily Telegraph - no longer) and half of the rest can't get convicted. But everybody KNOWS. Even after you eliminate non-broad sheet newspaper dross.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
q, we all know what happened, all that's left is the testing of forensic evidence for a legal verdict.

No we don't. You never do. The "we all know" attitude is how travesties of justice happen.

I know people who have admitted (to me) the grisliest of cases. I know people who may admit some degree of responsibility, have explained to me just how it went down, and it is not what you will read in the press or the court ruling (especially in a country where confession in police custody - and don't believe you would never confess - is pivotal in the criminal justice process and the standard for a jury is not "beyond reasonable doubt" but each person's "intimate conviction").

And I know people who as far as I can judge, in circumstances not far removed from what we know about the situation lying behind the OP, have been locked up for decades without due cause.

On the basis of people I know, I could also construct a scenario on the basis of this case which would probably have most of you, should the accused be found guilty, screaming at the miscarriage of justice. I've decided not to because even by the Ship's standards, it would probably be far too disturbing for too many people.

Untimely death is horrible. It is an outworking of the human condition we all share. It's more horrible than most of us realise. Let's go about this subject with fear and trembling.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Eutychus. We might all know, but we STILL don't convict. And we certainly DON'T know, and we do convict.

Believe me. Funny things juries.

And this I do know, NOTHING - THE truth - is like it is in the newspapers or any media or any courtroom.

[ 19. January 2014, 18:22: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Forgive my asking, but why is this so shocking, or for that matter, surprising? Weighed against killing one's child, lying to the police about it strikes me as a much less serious offence. Does it somehow make murder more OK if the person fesses up to it?

OK, the hosts don't want the case of the 3 yr old discussed . So take the Ian Huntley case for example . I suppose people such as myself get a bit angered over the way that bloke made out he wanted to help with the enquiry, then consistently lied until such a point as he couldn't escape the facts.

Then at the trial he seemed to want to insult everyone's intelligence with ridiculous accounts of how his victims must have drowned accidentally.
OK , at the end of the day all this bull doesn't make a difference , he done the crime, he's doing the time .

Maybe it's just me but didn't there used to be something called remorse .

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

Maybe it's just me but didn't there used to be something called remorse.

Yes, they just don't write novels and melodramas like they used to. Sadly, murdering small children with callous indifference is nothing new.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Who said anything about callous indifference? That's tabloid mind reading.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

The public is not alone in lying. The police do it too. If you have a look about the Reid Technique (summaries available online via internet search) you will find details about social engineering and deception used by the police. Deception, lying and other manipulations by them and prosecutors have been implicated in false convictions. Entrapment is another problem which has been allowed by courts here.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
q, we all know what happened, all that's left is the testing of forensic evidence for a legal verdict.
No we don't. You never do. The "we all know" attitude is how travesties of justice happen.

Indeed, just take a look at Lindy Chamberlain. Back in 1980, 'we all knew' that dingoes didn't attack children and so the mother must have done it. Plus she didn't look upset enough on television.

It took a very, very long time for the Australian justice system to undo the consequences of what everybody 'knew'.

[ 20. January 2014, 00:37: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

Teenager murdered by police for being mentally ill. Or, why lying to the police about mental illness seems like it would save your life.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
q, we all know what happened, all that's left is the testing of forensic evidence for a legal verdict.
No we don't. You never do. The "we all know" attitude is how travesties of justice happen.
Indeed, just take a look at Lindy Chamberlain. Back in 1980, 'we all knew' that dingoes didn't attack children and so the mother must have done it. Plus she didn't look upset enough on television.

It took a very, very long time for the Australian justice system to undo the consequences of what everybody 'knew'.

Yes, 'we all know what happened' is a dangerous concept. It actually subverts justice, which sets out to find out what happened, via a trial. It can also lead to vigilantism and persecution - think of all the people whom the tabloids fingered, because they knew they were guilty. Beware if you are a bit eccentric, and you are caught up in a case, as people will 'know' that you did it.

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

While I get where Martin is coming from, in the end the stats don't lie, it is nearly always someone very close. It is just crazy to suggest (and Martin is not suggesting this) that the police always get it right. Here are two instances where they actively got it wrong leading to a life nearly ruined and a death:

C Jeferries

B Ebrahimi

Both relatively recently, both in Bristol.

Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on :

Of course, every single instance of something like this happening should be carefully investigated.

Police charging someone does not mean they are guilty or that there is enough information to convict in a proper court of law. The public and press should hold off judging people before the full investigation has been completed.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

There was an interesting case near me a few years ago, where a guy shot dead a burglar, who was climbing out of a window.

To most of my neighbours, and part of the press, he was a hero, and the burglar had it coming. But to some he was a murderer, and eventually he was convicted of that.

But there was a twist in the tail - he appealed on grounds of diminished responsibility (personality disorder) and this was accepted, and it was reduced to manslaughter.

So there were 3 versions of what happened, and which one you picked depended less on factual stuff than on one's sympathies.

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