presumed, in the eyes of the interviewing officers, to be guilty. The CPT has underlined the importance of the principle of proceeding “from the evidence to the suspect” rather than “from the suspect to the evidence”. Such an approach must prevail in the daily practice of all those involved, from apprehending officers to police investigators, as well as other actors of the criminal justice system such as prosecutors and judges. 75. This “non-accusatory” approach captures in essence the PEACE11 model for investigative interviewing, which the police service of England and Wales adopted in the early 1990s as the methodology for interviewing suspects, as well as witnesses and victims. Introduced in the context of larger reforms, this methodology changed entirely the procedures applied when interviewing suspects and, in the longer term, the mindset of individual police officers and the police service at large. 76. More recently, during its 2018 periodic visit to Norway, the CPT also examined the techniques of investigative interviewing applied by the Norwegian police (the so-called KREATIV12 model). Since 2004, the KREATIV course has formed part of the syllabus for university training programmes for police officers.13 77. The aim of training in investigative interviewing is to help police officers to carry out interviews in a systematic manner with an open mind, avoiding common pitfalls associated with relying on preconceived conclusions.14 Equally importantly, it facilitates communication and the information flow, and consequently the detection of crime. Furthermore, it reduces the risk of human error and false confessions, which can occur with techniques designed to make the suspect confess. Research into the causes of wrongful convictions has documented that problems associated with “tunnel vision” or “confirmation bias” (i.e. an unconscious tendency to seek out only information that “fits” and to ignore or explain away information that does not confirm what the interviewer believes to be true) are the underlying causes of miscarriages of justice in most cases. 78. Police interviewers with an open mindset are far more effective; they apply in practice the presumption of innocence by generating and actively testing alternative hypotheses through systematic preparation, empathic rapport-building, the use of open-ended questions, active listening, and strategic probing and disclosure of potential evidence. 79. Unsurprisingly, the investigative interviewing approach – combined with the practical operation of procedural safeguards as from the very outset of deprivation of liberty – is gradually achieving broad acceptance at universal level.15 It features a number of advantages: it dismantles the myth of the effectiveness of harsh interrogation methods (including ultimately torture), and replaces it with more effective 11. The acronym PEACE stands for “Planning and preparation, Engage and explain, Account, Closure and Evaluation”. 12. The Norwegian acronym stands for “(K) Communication, Rule of law, Ethics and empathy, Active awareness, Trust through openness, Information, (V) Scientific anchoring”. 13. See CPT/Inf (2019) 1, paragraph 28. 14. In this connection, see “A brief introduction to investigative interviewing – A practitioner’s guide”, Council of Europe, October 2018. 15. See in particular the interim report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (A/71/298, 5 August 2016), who made a convincing case for the benefits of investigative interviewing and called for the development of a universal protocol identifying a set of standards for non-coercive interviewing methods and procedural safeguards. Preventing police torture and other forms of ill-treatment ► Page 33