The SCS had a number of issues ranging from poor recruitment and management practices to well-documented, repeated falsification. Poor management led to poor performance, which pressured officers to take shortcuts.
Management issues The SCS had an "elite" ethos which may have induced arrogance in dealing with other investigators. Recruitment was usually through choice, rather than open recruitment. The SCS was an all-male, probably wholly-white unit; officers tended to serve for long periods rather than move regularly, and were allowed to work long overtime hours. These factors may have reinforced an insular culture. Incidents were recorded of bullying officers who reported malpractice. The general West Midlands interview manual was criticised as misleading, advising officers to assume guilt in a range of situations where it may not be true. The manual appeared to be a compendium of techniques and experience from officers, rather than based on independent psychological research and evidence. Reactions to interviews are made under stress and need to be treated with caution, but the manual offered interpretations of various reactions as likely signs of guilt. The advice included contradictory interpretations of similar reactionsfor instance, insisting on innocence and complaining about treatment was noted in different parts of the manual as indicating innocence or guilt.
The Guardian concluded that West Midlands Police should "adopt the approach of [the] Mersey scheme, with its emphasis on teaching the police to listen and frame questions. Research shows the biggest mistake in interrogation is the failure to listen to what is said". There was a lax approach to the pairing of officers for interviews; officers less familiar with each other should be put together to reduce the risk of poor (or illegal) practice. A number of regular pairings of interviewing officers seems to have led to collaboration in falsifying evidence. It was West Midlands Police policy to transfer the vast majority of documents to
microfiche after two years and destroy the originals; the microfiche copies, however, were often unreadable. The practice made it impossible to ascertain if statements had been interfered with through ESDA scanning and analysis. Low-level paperwork tasks were supervised by upper management, who were generally too involved in practical work (including investigations, distracting from leadership, policy setting and supervision). Management focused on paper-based processes, and was given little management training. Junior officers apparently had a practical veto on new recruits. Management practice was sufficiently poor for misleading statements to be made by the squad to external authorities; it told the Court of Appeal that officers had been disciplined after interference with witness statements, but the changes did not include "incriminating admissions" (which was untrue). This led to the appeals of Horobin and Wilcox being turned down in 1988.
Confession evidence The SCS often relied on confession evidence to the exclusion of other kinds of evidence, despite the fact that it is inherently unreliable. Sometimes this can be due to the presence of authority and the expectation of a confession; it can be due to stress factors in interviews. Given a certain level of stress, some interviewees will confess simply to bring the questioning to an end. A third group may come to believe in their guilt with time.
False confessions are not the product of coercive techniques alone, but these factors can make confessions unsound. Kaye noted five cases where a statement with a confession was presented to other suspects; self-incriminating reactions were noted, although not usually signed by the suspects. This evidence was then used in their convictions. For instance, Foran was noted as saying "What can I say? It's all there isn't it?" Boswell was recorded as saying "That fucking bastard, I'll kill him ... we all agreed to make our own statements if caught and I can't make one against my own will, can I?" Several confessions were said by police officers to have been made in a squad car immediately after arrest. Suspects were sometimes brought to police stations far from the arrest, in contravention of
PACE regulations. Squad-car interviews are an opportunity to interview suspects without a solicitor, and make it relatively easy for officers to claim that incriminating statements were made (including falsification of signed notes). Signed confessions were shown from Dandy's case onwards to have been tampered with, due to forensic ESDA evidence. The original statements were generally destroyed, however, making it impossible to make this analysis in most cases. Courts later worked on the assumption that certain officers may have tampered with signed confessions on the basis of previous behaviour, making a conviction unsafe if it relied on this evidence. Many confessions were recorded, but not admitted to, by defendants. The confessional statements were generally short and undetailed, even in the course of long interviews. Kaye notes in his examination that such confessions would be unusual; most of the suspects were criminals with several confessions, probably familiar with police procedure and the effect of such convictions if they were insisting on their innocence. The confessions' phraseology was often similar, and hackneyed. Kaye records that many were variations of: • "That's a bit heavy" • "You're spot on" • "That bastard's really put me in it" • "You're putting a good case against me" Kaye adds that the language of the statements was generally very similar, lacking differentiation in phraseology and colloquialisms from Birmingham or the Black Country and not reflecting the suspects' diverse backgrounds (who may have been Asian, Afro-Caribbean, or from different regions of Britain or Ireland). Only in the case of Afro-Caribbeans did he note any difference, where suspects would use the word "man" despite using the same language patterns in every other respect. Other evidence for interference with statements is from their length. Where the content of the statements is claimed to have been added to, they frequently show implausibly-fast note-taking. Kaye calculates the transcription rate as around 30 words a minute, rather than a more-typical 20–23 words a minute. In John O'Brien's case, DC Shaw was asked in court to read back his notes from an interview marked as having taken 15 minutes; he took 20 minutes to read them back, and the case was dropped. To make it difficult for interviewees to be found by lawyers or relatives, police used haphazard interview locationsoften to the annoyance of other police, especially since they would be implicitly tolerating the denial of a suspect's right to a solicitor. Arrests often took place very early in the morning (standard police practice to ensure suspects are easily located), which would have made them disoriented during an interview. Irregular, long and early hours would also have affected police performance.
Denying suspects access to a solicitor Kaye's analysis of 1980s case evidence found that no confession evidence was produced when a solicitor was present. He also found that access to solicitors was delayed in every case except for those where no request was made. The standard practice was apparently to interview suspects with the aim of obtaining a confession before allowing them a solicitor, which did not stop the confession evidence from being used in successful trials. In some cases, suspects were forced to sign a statement that they had not requested a solicitor. George Lewis' custody sheet has a line marking the paper where his hand was clearly knocked to prevent him from striking out the statement saying that he had agreed not to have a solicitor present. Charles Campbell's solicitor obtained agreement from the police that no interview would take place without him, but Campbell's confession was apparently obtained in an interview less than fifteen minutes after the solicitor's departure. Operation Cat, which included the conviction of Pendle and Derek Treadaway, relied heavily on evidence from supergrass Keith Morgan. Morgan had confessed to 20 offences and was sentenced to five years in return for the evidence he presented. He was not a reliable witness, and had alleged that a
Merseyside police officer helped him plan robberies in return for payment. The allegation was dismissed after an investigation, but its existence and unreliability were unavailable to the defence of those he had accused. Supergrass Albert McCabe implicated over 100 suspects since 1986, many of whom were prosecuted but whose cases later collapsed. He was prosecuted for a small number of offences after confessing to nearly 70, and was sentenced to six years in jail; the light sentence was part of a deal for giving evidence against others. He later wrote to the solicitors of those he had implicated that his evidence was given under duress. Once convicted, he refused to make any further statements for the police.
Violence, intimidation and torture Allegations were made in the early 1980s that SCS officers placed plastic bags over the heads of suspects and covered their mouths to partially suffocate them and extract a confession. Kaye notes that no such incident occurred after 1983. Keith Twitchell underwent polygraph and "truth drug" tests to try to establish that this had happened, but the evidence was deemed inadmissible by the court. In 1982–83, some of those convicted in Operation Cat made the same allegation. In Derek Treadaway's case, a Home Office pathologist gave evidence that abrasions around his mouth and bruising on his shoulders and chest were consistent with his account of being held down on a chair and "plastic-bagged" with his mouth covered. According to Kaye, allegations of violence declined significantly after 1986. A possible explanation for the decline in violence may include that it proved counter-productive; evidence of physical abuse could be recorded and presented in court, and psychological pressure in obtaining confessions could be just as effective. There were many serious allegations of violence towards suspects in earlier SCS history, the best-known of which is the Birmingham Six. Derek Boswell made well-documented allegations in 1983, after he refused to make a statement. Boswell said that an unknown officer entered his cell, beat him up and told him to make a statement. He was later visited by a doctor, who recorded that he had blood stains on his T-shirt and trousers, blood clots in his nostrils and minor facial injuries consistent with his account of being hit in the face. The officer was never identified, although Boswell described him. One SCS officer was convicted in 1983 of beating up suspects on the evidence of a police cadet who was subsequently ostracised and resigned. According to Kaye, complaints of threats increased as violence declined. Paul Fitzsimmons alleged that he was threatened in prison with rearrest on release unless he supported the police account of solicitors asking for bribes in the Ronnie Bolden case. DS McManus is alleged to have asked Fitzsimmons to claim that Bolden's solicitors had offered him a bribe to give evidence to help Bolden. Hassan Khan said that he was told during his journey back from arrest in North Wales that he would be beaten up and treated in the same way as the Birmingham Six, and was going to meet the person who dealt with them. Eileen McCabe, sister of supergrass Albert, said that she was told to sign a confession. Her children were brought to the police station despite a previous agreement that they would stay with their grandmother, which made her extremely concerned about their treatment. She signed the confession, but it later came to light that she had difficulty reading and was unlikely to have understood its contents.
Interference with evidence In some cases, the SCS was accused of fabricating forensic evidence; Ronnie Bolden alleged that police rubbed his shoes and socks on a getaway car's carpet. In the cases of Robert Burston and others, police were said to have taken bin liners with their fingerprints and placed them in a post-office van. Keith Twitchell said that his hairs were planted as evidence, although this was not used in court. During the PCA inquiry, seven police notebooks were found to be missing despite a requirement for them to be secured for seven years. Six arrest files of 658 from 1986 to August 1989 were missing. Kaye concludes that files going missing were "not uncommon" at the SCS. In the case of Gall, this included witness statements from the assault victim which described their assailant as different in appearance from Gall. Although this evidence re-appeared late in the court case, Gall was still convicted. Michael Brommell, convicted of shotgun offences, complained about a fabricated confession. The interview notes had gone missing, however, making it impossible to identify the officers who had taken them. Two officers had viewed the file with the notes the day before they went missing. The officers were suspended when the SCS was disbanded, but were reinstated after no evidence was found that they had removed the notes. Some cases relied on timing evidence which may have been altered. Michael Foran was said to have been arrested at 3:05 pm, just after an accomplice had arranged to meet him at the Hurst Street car park; Foran was logged as being in a cell by 3:12 pm, seven minutes later. Foran said he was arrested at 2:05 pm; an entry on his arrest sheet was crossed out, and the original document had been destroyed. Timing evidence was also important in the Birmingham Six case, where forensic scientist
Frank Skuse said that he examined the suspects and found them in good health at a time later than when they claimed they had been beaten up. Skuse had not taken notes, however, and a local chemist had been contacted by him at a time compatible with the defence's account. ==Failed prosecutions==