ACCORDING to researchers, criminals who are not telling the truth will give themselves away if police ask them to tell their story backwards.

Body language, hesitation and slight contradictions – all the little tell-tale signs – are out.
A well rehearsed false alibi is easy to stick to and the police, easy to fool.

But put it all in reverse and it starts to come apart.

Phrased another way, police should ask criminals to backwards tell their stories the lying they will be able to tell.

See, it must be true.

They slip up badly, leaving verbal clues like fingerprints.

‘Okay Nogger we’ve got you bang to rights.’

‘Honest Guv, it weren’t me. I never touched the diamonds.’

‘So tell me again Nogger and this time tell me the story backwards.’

‘Sdnomaid eht...’

‘Don’t be clever Nogger, you know what I mean.’

‘All right Guv.

‘They told I was being taken to the station on account I’d robbed the diamonds.

‘They shouted to get my trousers on cos I was nicked.

‘The coppers burst into the bedroom before I could move.

‘But then there was a tremendous crashing noise as the front door caved in.

‘I told her to go back to sleep, she was hearing things. My wife woke me and said she’d heard a noise.

‘We went to bed about 10.30. I had my supper, 18 carrots. I mean a round of toast. The missus complained it was all a load of rubbish. We stayed in all night watching telly, Pink Panther, no
The Bill that was it, and some other stuff.

‘We ate our meal, the wife had got a nice necklace of lamb and I probably nodded off after drinking the wine and having had to do a runner. To catch the bus. I was late, I’d been wondering about where to find a fence, a fence I want to put round the garden.

‘She’d asked me to call in at Smash and Grab – silly me, Marks and Spencer’s - and pick up a bottle of mask, er Muscadet, to have with our dinner.

‘Well, I went to work as I always do, was there all day and knocked off the stuff, I mean knocked off, about five and made my way home.

‘So it couldn’t have been me.’

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