When my team and I were appointed as Solicitors to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in 1998 to investigate traumatic events that occurred in 1972, and where a public inquiry at the time had failed to engender public confidence, I was clear that every member of my team would need to be skilled in the art of cognitive interviewing- a technique of which I had experience in practice, but without a deeper understanding of the philosophies and concepts that underpinned the process.

It was at that stage that with the assistance of the authors of this book, I sought out a more vigorous analysis of the reasons for the success of the techniques, and ensured that all team members used them, to ensure uniformity of approach. They were trained accordingly. The result was the conduct of over 2000 interviews using a consistent approach to obtain a consistent body of quality evidence. Lawyers for many of those who gave evidence openly stated that the evidence was of a very high quality, and that the methodology- inherently inquisitorial in its nature- had proved particularly suitable to engender confidence in the process and to dispel pre-existing scepticism.

The benefits have endured and my team still adheres to this methodology in public inquiry work up until the present time.

I therefore commend the techniques that are described in the pages that follow to practitioners in the field who I am sure will find the analysis and direction as useful as it is interesting.”