Connect with us

Published

on

I’m officially a bad liar.

With a blood pressure cuff pumped tight around my arm, straps around my chest monitoring my breathing, and sensors on my fingers to pick up any traces of sweat, veteran polygraph test examiner Don Cargill says he can easily spot the signs I’ve told him a fib.

I’ve denied writing the number three on the piece of paper placed underneath my chair, in a simple exercise designed to show how my body reacts to lying. Even with nothing to lose, it’s an uncomfortable experience.

But while commonly associated with daytime television programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show, the use of lie detectors is expanding within the criminal justice system.

And the answers people give could help determine whether or not they can see their children – or even land them back in jail.

Jeremy Kyle in 2019. Pic: ITV
Image:
Lie detector tests featured regularly on The Jeremy Kyle Show. Pic: ITV

In an office above a branch of Carpetright in west London, Mr Cargill carries out private polygraph tests. His clients have included foreign politicians accused of bribery, bodybuilders who want to prove they haven’t taken performance-enhancing drugs, and people accused of stealing from their family or being unfaithful to a spouse.

More and more are trying to cheat the polygraph using instructions found online, he says. “There’s a lot of techniques they do but we spot 90% of them or more.”

I’m asked to jump up and down and open my mouth before my test. Some people have pressed drawing pins into the bottom of their shoes, or even superglued tacks in their mouths, to create a pain response in their brain to distort the chart, Mr Cargill says.

He asks for identification to make sure a stand-in hasn’t been sent and carries out other simple tests to spot signs of sleep deprivation or illegal drug use.

A camera is trained on the subject’s eyes to make sure they don’t cross them or “zone out”, while a seat pad is in place to catch out anyone clenching their bottom.

All of these methods have been used to try to cheat the test, Mr Cargill says.

Lie detectors are increasingly being used by police forces
Image:
Sky’s Henry Vaughan takes a lie detector test

Can lie detectors be cheated?

It is possible to beat the polygraph, says Newcastle University Emeritus Professor Don Grubin, but it takes a lot of practice with the equipment and examiners are trained to spot the signs of anyone trying to trick the test.

Double child killer Colin Pitchfork – who was jailed for life after raping and strangling 15-year-olds Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth in Leicestershire in 1983 and 1986 – was recalled to prison in 2021 partly due to concerns he was using breathing techniques in a bid to beat the lie detector.

The Home Office says the polygraph records physiological changes in a person, quoting research from the American Polygraph Association which found deception is accurately detected in 80 to 90% of cases.

Since 2014, probation services have carried out more than 8,800 polygraph tests, while police have conducted more than 4,600, says Prof Grubin, who explains around 60 to 70% result in disclosures – where someone reveals relevant information.

His company, Behavioural Measures UK, has trained and supervised dozens of police and parole polygraph test examiners over the past decade, and like other experts in the field, he doesn’t like the term lie detectors.

The technology detects the “cognitive process” (or the brain working harder) when someone tells a lie, he explains.

Polygraph results
Image:
The results of a polygraph test

The “real skill lies in the experience of the examiner”, says Mr Cargill, the chief executive of VAST Screening Technologies Ltd and the chairman of the British and European Polygraph Association.

“Nervous reactions are completely different from people telling lies,” he says. “Your heart rate physically increases because you’re triggering the autonomic nervous system, which triggers a fight, flight or freeze response. You want to run away.”

But critics, including University of Northumbria researchers Dr Marion Oswald, a professor of law, and associate professor Dr Kyriakos Kotsoglou, say much of the research is carried out by the industry itself and the accuracy can’t be tested in a real-life situation – because it is impossible to verify if someone has told a lie.

They say it is an intrusive “interrogation” technique used to illicit confessions, arguing the polygraph device itself is unnecessary and could be swapped for putting someone’s hand on a photocopying machine – a method apparently used by Detroit police and immortalised in cult American crime drama The Wire.

“If you can convince the subject that she or he is being monitored for lies and they believe it, then she or he will disclose more information,” says Dr Kotsoglou.

How are lie detectors used?

The results can’t be used as evidence in criminal courts but mandatory lie detector tests have been used as a licence condition for sex offenders since 2014, then rolled out to convicted terrorists in 2021 in the wake of the Fishmongers’ Hall attack.

They are also used by police and the security services to monitor the small number of terror suspects made subject to Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (Tpims).

There is currently a three-year trial for their use on domestic abuse offenders, while the new Criminal Justice Bill proposes to extend this to convicted murderers who pose a risk of committing a relevant sexual offence on release.

The tests provide “invaluable information we would otherwise not have had about offenders’ behaviour which helps us to better protect the public”, the Ministry of Justice says.

The Metropolitan Police is looking into using lie detection technology to vet new recruits or root out corrupt officers following a string of damaging scandals, including the cases of Sarah Everard’s murderer Wayne Couzens and serial rapist David Carrick.

David Carrick and Wayne Couzens
Image:
David Carrick and Wayne Couzens

But “this is still at an early research stage” and there are no imminent plans to use the technology in this way, the force says.

Others are turning to lie detectors to try to prove their innocence.

Kevin Duffy, 70, passed a polygraph test after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a child, but the results weren’t taken into account by the judge who jailed him for more than nine years.

His son Ryan Duffy, 44, says: “If there’s something that can be used when it’s one person’s word against another’s that can highlight some kind of evidence, why can’t it be used?

“If they are prepared to look at it after conviction for single case issues such as, ‘are you using public transport, hanging around schools’, and relying on data for probation services, then why can’t you use it beforehand?”

Kevin Duffy took a polygraph test to try to prove his innocence. Pic: Ryan Duffy
Image:
Kevin Duffy took a polygraph test to try to prove his innocence. Pic: Ryan Duffy

People can’t be sent back to prison for failing a test, but they can face further sanctions, such as stricter licence conditions, and they can be recalled for making disclosures that reveal they have breached licence conditions or indicate their risk has increased.

The information gathered can be shared with police to carry out further investigations, which could lead to charges, while those found trying to trick the polygraph can also be recalled to prison.

A government report last year revealed four convicted terrorists were sent back to jail as a result of lie detector tests – three were recalled after disclosing “risk-related information”, while the fourth didn’t comply with their polygraph licence condition.

'An uncomfortable experience'
Image:
Sensors pick up any traces of sweat during the polygraph test

An increasing number of police forces are using the polygraph, which is seen as a useful tool to monitor and assess the risk of people on the sex offenders’ register, allowing officers to concentrate stretched resources on those deemed the most dangerous.

At least 14 of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales are now using lie detectors, with 14 police officers and 11 staff qualified as polygraph examiners, according to figures obtained by Liberty Investigates.

The data shows 671 polygraph tests were carried out by the 13 forces who provided figures by calendar year, up from 458 in 2018, and a five-year high.

More forces are expected to start using the technology as the College of Policing makes available training through its “polygraph school”.

Polygraph test
Image:
Polygraph tester Don Cargill reviews Henry’s results

Suspects facing lie detector tests

Testing is “only mandatory by way of conditional caution or a positive obligation of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order or Sexual Risk Order” imposed by the courts, says the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and “any police use of polygraph will form part of a wider and detailed risk management plan tailored to the individual concerned”.

But the University of Northumbria researchers say a non-statutory regime of testing is being carried out by some forces, including on suspects during criminal investigation.

People arrested on suspicion of committing online child sex offences, for example, could be asked to take a test as part of a risk assessment to determine whether they can have contact with children, including their own.

Figures obtained by Prof Oswald and Dr Kotsoglou, using freedom of information requests, show that at least 228 such polygraph interviews were carried out over six years.

Other responses indicated use in “voluntary” risk assessments of convicted sex offenders, including those who apply for removal from the sex offenders’ register, and ambitions to use polygraph testing for more general offences such as violence.

History of the lie detector

The polygraph machine was invented in 1921 by police officer John Larson in Berkley, California, and has been used by US law enforcement agencies ever since and spread across the world.

His work was picked up by Leonard Keeler, who is widely credited as the inventor of the modern lie detector.

In the 1990s, the polygraph entered the computer age as statisticians at Johns Hopkins University developed an algorithm to analyse the data collected.

Jack Ruby, who shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald two days after he assassinated John F Kennedy requested and was granted a polygraph test to try to prove he was not involved in a conspiracy with Oswald – but then FBI-director J Edgar Hoover said the technique was not “sufficiently precise” to judge truth or deception “without qualification”.

Notable failures include CIA agent Aldrich Ames, who passed two polygraph tests while spying for the Soviet Union.

Prof Oswald says: “I think our concern is that should we really in this country be basing really serious criminal justice decisions in a legal system on a scientific technique that is highly contested, to put it mildly, and hasn’t, especially in the policing circumstance, been discussed by parliament?”

The College of Policing says: “The College is working closely with the NPCC to establish a Polygraph School so that policing in England and Wales has access to standardised learning and development in the use of the tool that is tailored to their operating environment.

“The College will develop operational advice so that forces using the tool have a consistent basis on which to do so whilst recognising the relevant legal provisions.”

Peter Bondarenko demonstrates the VAST device
Image:
A new test known as ‘polygraph in a box’ has been developed

What is the future for lie detectors?

The technology has existed in some form for around a century and now Mr Cargill has invented what he calls a “completely revolutionary” Validated Automated Screening Technology (VAST) system – or “polygraph in a box”.

Programmed to find out anything from whether someone has massaged the qualifications on their CV to if they’re a member of an international terrorist organisation, he says the device is as accurate as any polygraph examiner and is already being used by police in the UK.

But the testing time is reduced to around 20 minutes from three hours and can be used with just 15 minutes training.

After filling out a questionnaire, the subject – attached to the device, wearing headphones and sensors on their fingers and palm – is instructed to silently answer “no” to the questions by a person in a recorded video on the screen. A human then grills them about any responses that indicate deception.

“I call it a truth verifier rather than a lie detector because what it’s doing is testing integrity,” explains Mr Cargill.

The technology, he says, would be ideal for use in police vetting and he wants to see it rolled out to areas such as Border Force, where officers could verify someone’s age or country of origin.

Continue Reading

UK

Three men jailed for plotting to murder £54m Securitas robber Paul Allen

Published

on

By

Three men jailed for plotting to murder £54m Securitas robber Paul Allen

Three men have been jailed for a combined total of 99 years for plotting to murder a member of a gang that carried out Britain’s biggest-ever cash robbery.

Paul Allen, 46, was shot twice as he stood in his kitchen in Woodford, east London, on 11 July 2019.

He was a member of the Securitas heist gang that stole £54m from a cash depot in Tonbridge, Kent, in 2006.

The former cage fighter was living in a large detached rented house with his partner and three young children after being released from an 18-year prison sentence over the raid.

The attack at his home has left him paralysed from the chest down.

Louis Ahearne, 36, Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, denied conspiring to murder Allen but were found guilty last month following a trial at the Old Bailey.

The trio were sentenced at the Old Bailey in central London on Friday.

Kelly was sentenced to 36 years in prison and an extra five years on licence, Louis Ahearne was jailed for 33 years, and his sibling Stewart Ahearne – 30 years.

Damage to the kitchen door.
Pic: Met Police/PA
Image:
Damage to the kitchen door. Pic: Met Police/PA

A bullet casing found in the back garden. Pic: Met Police
Image:
A bullet casing found in the back garden. Pic: Met Police

Prosecutors did not give a motive for the murder plot, though they described the victim as a “sophisticated” career criminal.

Detectives said the shooting could seem like “the plot [of] a Hollywood blockbuster” but added it was actually “horrific criminality” from “hardened organised criminals”.

In her sentencing remarks, the judge said she believed the trio “were motivated by a promise of financial gain”.

Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC said: “I have no doubt that this agreement to murder Paul Allen involved other people apart from the three of you and that you three were motivated by a promise of financial gain.

“The culpability of each one of you is very high.

“The harm caused to the victim was very serious – indeed, short of killing him it could hardly be more serious. He is currently paralysed and relies on others for every single need.”

The shooting was just the latest act in a long list of criminal deeds. The day before, Kelly and Louise Ahearne used a rented car to carry out a burglary in Kent, accessing the gated community by pretending to be police officers.

A month before that, the trio had stolen more than $3.5m (£2.78m) worth of Ming dynasty antiques from the Museum of Far Eastern Arts in Geneva, for which the Ahearne brothers had been jailed in Switzerland.

Kelly is also wanted in Japan over the robbery of a Tokyo jewellery store in 2015 in which a security guard was punched in the face.

Continue Reading

UK

Claire Chick: Paul Butler jailed for life for murdering Plymouth university lecturer

Published

on

By

Claire Chick: Paul Butler jailed for life for murdering Plymouth university lecturer

A man has been jailed for life for the murder of university lecturer Claire Chick.

Paul Butler was sentenced to a minimum term of 27 years for killing his estranged wife after a six-month campaign of stalking and harassment when he refused to accept their relationship was over.

Ms Chick, 48, was found seriously injured on West Hoe Road in Plymouth just before 9pm on 22 January. She was taken to hospital, but died the next day.

Previously known as Claire Butler, Ms Chick worked at the University of Plymouth.

Paul Antony Butler.
Pic: Devon & Cornwall Police
Image:
Paul Butler has been jailed for murder. Pic: Devon & Cornwall Police


She died after a frenzied attack outside her home – the attack a culmination of months of harassment, stalking and violence at the hands of Butler.

Following her death, Devon and Cornwall Police made a referral to the police watchdog due to previous contact prior to her death.

Jo Martin KC, prosecuting, said Ms Chick had made six statements to the police about Butler and he had been arrested three times.

More on Cornwall

In her final statement to police the day before he killed her outside her own home, she said: “I only feel that Butler will kill me if further action is not taken. I am in fear of leaving my house.”

Butler was arrested around 20 miles away in the Liskeard area on 24 January.

He was sentenced on Friday at Plymouth Crown Court, having previously pleaded guilty to murder, and to one charge of possession of a bladed article.

‘I loved Claire’

The family of Ms Chick told the court how her murder left a “huge void” in their lives.

Her eldest daughter, Bethany Hancock-Baxter, described Butler as “evil”.

She said: “I want this evil man to listen to me. I want you to know what you have done to us as a family.

“Despite all the hate I have for you, I cannot bring myself to do what you did to my mum – that’s because I am not evil like you.”

Her sister, Lydia Peers, said Butler was a “parasite”.

After her short-lived marriage to Butler, Ms Chick began a relationship with another man, Paul Maxwell.

Mr Maxwell spoke from the witness box and repeatedly stared at the defendant as he spoke. Butler stared back at him.

“I loved Claire. She was beautiful, funny and kind,” Mr Maxwell said.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.

Continue Reading

UK

Vincent Nichols: British cardinal who will be in the conclave says picking the next pope is ‘intimidating’

Published

on

By

Vincent Nichols: British cardinal who will be in the conclave says picking the next pope is 'intimidating'

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has told Sky News it’s “intimidating” to be one of those responsible for choosing the next pope.

Vincent Nichols is among four UK cardinals in Rome for the Pope’s funeral on Saturday.

Following the funeral, and after nine days of mourning, cardinals from around the world will gather in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel to cast their votes, with white smoke announcing to the world when a new pope has been elected.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols with Anna Botting
Image:
Cardinal Vincent Nichols speaks to Sky’s Anna Botting

Cardinal Nichols told Sky’s Anna Botting: “I hope nobody goes into this conclave, as it were, with the sole purpose of wanting to win. I think it’s very important that we go in wanting to listen to each other… It has to be together, trying to sense what God wants next. Not just for the church.”

He described the procession that took Pope Francis to lie in state as “the most moving thing I’ve ever attended here”.

Describing the Pope as a “master of the gesture and the phrase”, he also recalled the pontiff’s last journey away from the Vatican.

Cardinal Nichols said Pope Francis had visited the Regina Coeli prison, telling the inmates: “You know, except for the grace of God, it could well have been me … Don’t lose hope, God has you written in his heart.”

More on Liverpool

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘Pope touched the hearts of millions’

The Pope later told his doctor his last regret was not being able to wash the feet of the prisoners during that visit.

Becoming emotional, he also said the final message he would like to have given Pope Francis is “thank you”.

The 88-year-old died peacefully on Easter Monday, the Vatican confirmed.

Heads of state – including Sir Keir Starmer, Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron – have all confirmed their attendance at his funeral, which takes place on Saturday at St Peter’s Square.

Prince William will attend on behalf of the King, Kensington Palace has said.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Where will Pope Francis be buried?

Talking about the seating plan at the funeral, Cardinal Nichols said he understood it to be “royalty first, then heads of state, then political leaders”.

Worldwide geopolitical tensions mean that many eyes will be on interactions between heads of state at the event, with particular focus on Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy following their tense meeting at the Oval Office in February.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Pope’s cause of death confirmed .

Looking back at the last papal funeral, Cardinal Nichols described the seating of the then Prince Charles one seat away from Zimbabwean present Robert Mugabe as “obviously a little bit tense”.

Cardinal Nichols explained event would be “exactly the same Catholic rite as everyone else – just on a grander scale”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

3D map shows pope’s funeral route

In a break from tradition, Pope Francis will be the first pope in a century to be interred outside the Vatican – and will instead be laid to rest at his favourite church, Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome’s Esquilino neighbourhood.

He will also be buried in just one simple wooden coffin, instead of the traditional three coffins which are usually used for pontiffs.

Born in Crosby near Liverpool, Cardinal Vincent Nichols hoped to be a lorry driver as a child – but as a teenager reportedly felt the calling to join the priesthood while watching Liverpool FC.

As cardinal, he is known for leading the church’s work tackling human trafficking and modern slavery, for which he received the UN Path to Peace Award.

He was criticised by the UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which said he “demonstrated a lack of understanding” of the impact of abuse and “seemingly put the reputation of the church first”.

Cardinal Nichols, responding to the findings, previously told Sky News he was “ashamed at what has happened in the context of the Catholic Church” and promised to improve the church’s response.

He has appeared to rule himself out of the running for pope, telling reporters he was “too old, not capable”.

Continue Reading

Trending