The interviewer role for a Forensic Accountant!

In order for evidence to be admissible in court, it must be relevant and not outweighed by countervailing considerations. Forensic accountants need to take into considerations the legal and ethical aspects in order to ensure the evidence and statements they obtained are admissible. Scott Porter even suggests a new standard for forensic accountant that ensures that such model addresses ethical, legal and psychological aspects. 

There are a number of techniques that forensic accountants can utilize to gain evidence and statements.These include the REID technique, PEACE and Motivational Interviewing.

I will focus on PEACE and Motivational Interviewing in this blog. The REID technique has been controversial and attributed to psychological coercion. Among many famous cases, including the Central Park Five, the REID technique has produced numerous false confessions. The integrators refusal to listen to the denial of the suspect creates the feeling of hopelessness which leads to short term thinking.   

Similar to a journalistic approach, the PEACE technique aims to gather information and evidence by focusing on content than non-verbal behaviour and encourages the interviewer to ask open-ended questions. The use of open-minded questions has been linked to "fuller and more accurate" accounts from the interviewee. 

Motivational Interviewing follows four principles: empathy, develop discrepancies, roll with resistance and support self-efficacy. This style of interviewing is based on the concept that confrontation will make a suspect defensive and a confession comes from "within" fraudster. So the interviewer has to guide the interview in a way that the suspect will choose the "correct path". Russell Williams' confession was attributed to MI.    

Thankfully I have not been interviewed or interrogated for any fraud. In my first professional interview for a job at a big accounting firm, the interviewer confronted me about a "Fail" on my academic transcript. His accusatory tone made me very defensive. Although the real reason I failed was both genuine and acceptable I felt I had to come up with an impressive tale for it to be accepted.     

References

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-interview-7

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/admissible_evidence

http://www.nova.edu/gsc/forms/mi_rationale_techniques.pdf
http://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-interviewing-suspects-from-woolwich-to-boston-14827
http://www.reid.com/pdfs/peacearticle.pdf 
http://www.acfe.com/uploadedFiles/ACFE_Website/Content/canadian/2013/presentations/5B-Scott-Porter-cpp.pdf