Academic collab brings proven scientific technique to unlock crime cases to more police forces

A science based interview technique devised by a Goldsmiths academic that has been the key to unlocking criminal cold cases is now available for police forces in the UK and potentially across the world.

The Self-Administered Interview (SAI) developed by Forensic Psychologist Professor Fiona Gabbert along with Professor Lorraine Hope at the University of Portsmouth allows families and key witnesses to “interview themselves” online, using scientifically designed prompts to produce richer, more reliable information than a standard initial report or hurried police interview.  

Now Goldsmiths and Portsmouth have partnered with secure digital evidence platform Kulpa to make SAIs more widely available. 

Gabbert’s research in investigative and cognitive psychology shows how human error can creep into investigations from the very start. Assumptions can harden into facts, Gabbert believes, as families and officers enter a case with a ready-made narrative.  

Gabbert - whose PhD focused on when and how memory fails, has focused her research work on how to make witness evidence more reliable. People forget details “very quickly” she says and simplify events over time.  The same stories are then repeated for years even when they still hold unspoken or half remembered information that could be crucial.  

“Insufficient or poor‑quality information at the start of an investigation can send you down an entirely wrong path,” Professor Gabbert said; 

“If we don’t help people rebuild that moment in time and think more broadly about what might have happened, we risk basing an investigation on the first story they told themselves – not on the best information they actually hold.” 

The SAI is a structured, research‑based questionnaire completed by the family member, friend or witness themselves, usually online. It’s designed to counter exactly the human failings that can undermine an investigation. 

Victims and witnesses will be able to complete an SAI through the Kulpa platform at the earliest opportunity after an incident. With more than 70 per cent of recorded crime cases currently unable to proceed because of evidential difficulties, the SAI’s integration directly addresses the challenge of securing accurate information and supporting evidence at key phases of an investigation. 

For investigators, prosecutors and courts, this means access to richer, more reliable human evidence alongside the photographs, videos and documents that digital platforms already manage. For victims and witnesses, it offers a structured way to record what they saw or experienced, at a moment when it matters most.  

Across more than a dozen published studies involving over 1,200 participants, witnesses using the SAI have consistently provided more correct detail in their initial accounts than those using standard free recall.  

The SAI can be shaped to support different types of investigations - including missing persons cases, workplace accidents, and road traffic collisions – with each reporting version developed in collaboration with practitioners. Gabbert’s work has been piloted extensively in the field of missing person investigations. 

Before asking what happened, the SAI walks the respondent back through life at the time of the disappearance, capturing the year and circumstances, where they were living and working and the missing person's demeanour, routine and outlook at the time. 

This “mental time‑travel” is a well‑established technique in investigative psychology that reactivates dormant memories and helps people recall details that a simple “tell me what happened” interrogation of the past will miss.  

Instead of going straight to “What do you think happened?”, the SAI introduces the top five evidence‑based reasons why people go missing, drawn from National Crime Agency data (such as mental health, family conflict, and financial problems). Respondents are asked to rate, on a scale, how likely each factor is in their case before offering their own explanation. This approach, Gabbert contends acts to loosen long‑held, sometimes inaccurate narratives shared by families and police, opening the door to alternative lines of enquiry. 

The SAI then systematically explores who was actually around the missing person asking who they’d turn to when deeply upset, who they would celebrate with, who they saw regularly – at work, on the school run, at the gym, and in their neighbourhood. Category prompts (such as family, colleagues, neighbours, other parents, etc.) are used as memory cues.   

The results here have been telling, Gabbert relates, “While original police investigations around a missing person surfaced five friends, the SAI approach revealed ten more people who were mentioned repeatedly but who never been interviewed.”  

“We now have a sophisticated understanding of how memory works, how information is forgotten, and critically how it can be supported to enable detailed and accurate reporting,” said Professor Hope at the University of Portsmouth. “The Self-Administered Interview translates decades of cognitive and forensic psychology research into a practical tool that helps people provide more detailed accounts when events are still fresh in memory.” 

Simon Franc, Founder and CEO at Kulpa said:  

“At a time when evidential difficulties remain one of the biggest barriers to bringing offenders to justice, this partnership represents an important opportunity to combine leading academic research with practical technology. Our shared goal is simple: to help preserve better evidence earlier, improve outcomes for victims and support more effective investigations.”