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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 鈥痑llows families and key witnesses to 鈥渋nterview themselves鈥� online, using scientifically designed prompts to produce richer, more reliable information than a standard initial report or hurried police interview.鈥� 

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

Gabbert鈥檚 research in investigative and cognitive psychology shows how human error鈥痗an creep into鈥痠nvestigations鈥痜rom the very start. Assumptions can harden into facts, Gabbert believes, as families and officers enter a case with a ready-made narrative.鈥� 

Gabbert - whose PhD focused on when and how memory fails, has focused her research work on how to make witness evidence more reliable. 鈥淪ome of the most valuable evidence in an investigation exists only in a person's memory. Yet memory is not a recording device; it fades, changes, and becomes harder to access over time.

鈥淭he earlier we can support people to report what they remember, the better the information available to investigators. What makes this partnership so important is that it brings a scientifically validated approach to memory retrieval into a digital environment that can be used at scale.鈥� 

The SAI is a structured, research鈥慴ased questionnaire completed by the family member, friend or witness themselves, usually online. It鈥檚 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鈥檚 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.鈥� 

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.鈥� 

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

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 鈥渕ental time鈥憈ravel鈥� is a well鈥慹stablished technique in investigative psychology that reactivates dormant memories and helps people recall details that a simple 鈥渢ell me what happened鈥� interrogation of the past will miss.鈥� 

Instead of going straight to 鈥淲hat do you think happened?鈥�, the SAI introduces the top five evidence鈥慴ased 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鈥慼eld, 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鈥檇 turn to when deeply upset, who they would celebrate with, who they saw regularly 鈥� 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.鈥�鈥� 

The results here have been telling, Gabbert relates, 鈥淲hile original police investigations around a missing person surfaced five friends, the SAI approach revealed ten more people who were mentioned repeatedly but who鈥痭ever鈥痓een interviewed.鈥濃�� 

鈥淲e 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,鈥� said Professor Hope at the University of Portsmouth. 鈥淭he 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.鈥� 

Simon Franc, Founder and CEO at Kulpa said:鈥� 

鈥淎t 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.鈥�