Author: Adrian Ramdat (Director of Training & Consultancy)
April 2026
I was partway through a training session not long ago, working with a team from a government organisation on investigative interviewing, when one attendee asked, with complete sincerity, when we were going to cover the ´good cop, bad cop´ part.
He wasn’t being difficult. He genuinely believed interviewing was a form of interrogation, involving pressure tactics and psychological plays. It’s an understandable assumption. It’s what films and television have taught us.
But it’s wrong. And in a professional setting, acting on that assumption doesn’t just produce poor interviews, it can unravel an entire investigation.
That moment captures something important, the gap between how people without training think interviewing works and what it actually involves is wide, and the consequences of getting it wrong are significant.
Investigative Interviewing Is Not Interrogation
Modern investigative interviewing is not about pressure or extracting confessions. It is a structured, ethical process designed to obtain accurate, reliable, and comprehensive accounts.
The risks of getting this wrong are real across ALL settings.
In law enforcement, coercive interviewing contributed to some of the most serious miscarriages of justice in modern legal history. In HR, poor interviews can lead to procedural unfairness claims that undermine investigations. In regulatory contexts, they can expose decisions to legal challenge long after the event.
The PEACE model, developed in the UK in the early 1990s following a series of miscarriages of justice and a shift toward more ethical, information-gathering approaches to interviewing, replaced confrontational interrogation with a framework that produces more reliable information and stronger outcomes. Its principles now apply just as directly in boardrooms, council offices, and HR environments.
What the PEACE Model Is
PEACE stands for Planning and Preparation, Engage and Explain, Account (Clarify and Challenge), Closure, and Evaluation. Each stage serves a distinct purpose, ensuring interviews are properly prepared, ethically conducted, and objectively assessed.
Planning and Preparation
More interviews are undermined at this stage than at any other, though the impact often only becomes apparent later.
Effective preparation means defining clear objectives: what the interview must achieve, what evidence already exists, and how that shapes questioning.
Without this, interviewers default to reactive questioning or pre-prepared lists, missing gaps and allowing confirmation bias to take hold. An interviewer who hasn’t defined what they’re looking for will often, without realising it, seek to confirm what they already believe.
Engage and Explain
Before questioning begins, the interviewer establishes the purpose, format, and any procedural requirements, while creating conditions that allow the interviewee to provide a full account.
This is often treated as a formality. It isn’t.
In HR, individuals may be concerned about confidentiality or job security. In whistleblower contexts, trust may already be low. Transparency about the process, how information will be used, and what happens next determines whether meaningful engagement is achieved.
You are unlikely to obtain a full account from someone who has already decided to say as little as possible.
Account, Clarify and Challenge
This is the core of the model and the most frequently misapplied stage.
The correct sequence is:
- Open questions to obtain a full uninterrupted account.
- Probing questions to clarify and expand.
- Challenge to address inconsistencies or conflicts with evidence.
This sequencing is critical. Challenging too early risks closing off lines of inquiry and contaminating the account. It can also create the impression of a predetermined outcome, which will be exploited in any later scrutiny.
Active listening here is a technical skill requiring training and practice. The interviewer must track what has and hasn’t been addressed, identify omissions, and probe without leading.
Closure
The interview concludes with a structured summary, confirmation of next steps, and an opportunity for the interviewee to add or correct information.
In whistleblower contexts especially, this stage signals whether the organisation is genuinely engaged or simply going through the motions.
Important information is often not disclosed not because it was deliberately withheld, but because the opportunity to provide it was never clearly offered.
Evaluation
This is the most consistently skipped stage and the one that distinguishes genuine investigative interviewing from a procedural exercise.
The question is not just what was said, but whether the interview achieved its objectives, whether a full account was obtained, and what gaps or inconsistencies remain.
Organisations that treat the interview as complete when the recording stops are not applying the PEACE model, they are performing it. The difference in outcomes is significant.
Where It Applies
A persistent misconception is that investigative interviewing belongs to policing. While PEACE originated there, its principles apply wherever decisions are made based on what people say.
HR and Employment Investigations
Employment tribunals are well practised at identifying where investigative processes have failed. Confirmation bias, leading questions, and premature conclusions are common features of unsuccessful investigations.
Most managers don’t approach investigations with bad intent, but with assumptions.
A structured framework provides the discipline to test those assumptions rather than confirm them, ensuring fairness and defensibility.
Local Authority and Regulatory Investigations
Regulatory investigations are often subject to scrutiny long after they conclude. Interviews conducted using PEACE principles are more evidentially defensible and more proportionate, which is essential for maintaining public confidence.
Whistleblower Engagements
Whistleblower interviews present distinct challenges. These individuals have often taken personal or professional risks to come forward.
The quality of the initial interview directly affects whether further disclosure is made. Where disclosures are protected under applicable legislation, the conduct of the interview may itself become relevant in assessing how the disclosure was handled.
Organisations that cannot demonstrate a structured, good-faith approach are in a weaker position both operationally and legally.
The Failures Are Predictable
Interview failures are not random. They are consistent and avoidable:
- Insufficient preparation leading to reactive questioning.
- Premature challenge contaminating evidence.
- Leading questions introducing bias.
- Confirmation bias shaping outcomes.
- Poor closure leaving key points unresolved.
- No evaluation, ending the process too early.
These failures regularly contribute to overturned decisions, tribunal findings, and whistleblowers disengaging from the process.
Structure Is Not Enough – Training Matters
The PEACE model is not a checklist. Organisations that adopt it without the underlying discipline risk creating a false sense of rigour.
Effective training develops the skills required to apply it: active listening, questioning techniques, conversation management, recognising bias, and evaluating performance. These are professional skills that require practice.
We train both law enforcement and non-law enforcement organisations across multiple jurisdictions. What remains consistent is that structured investigative interviewing works wherever it is applied.
Back in that training room, the attendee who asked about good cop, bad cop left with a very different understanding of investigative interviewing. That shift matters.
It is the difference between an organisation that conducts investigations that are fair, defensible, and effective, and one that is quietly carrying risk it does not recognise.
The PEACE model will not eliminate all risk. But applied properly, it provides the rigour investigations need and the fairness people deserve.
If your organisation wants to embed investigative interviewing in a way that is structured, defensible, and genuinely effective, contact us to find out how we can support you. Email us now at info@thesignaturebrand.co.uk