PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including physical violence, even physical and mental torture.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In 2021, whispers started, and rumours began. There was talk of a secret police interviewing technique being exposed. One that had gone too far. That had caused a false confession in a high-profile murder case. The talk reached two Stuff reporters, from different areas: The police, and legal sources. It soon became clear that the technique, dubbed CIPEM (Complex Investigation Phased Engagement Model) by its architect, Detective Superintendent Tom Fitzgerald, had been the subject of a suppressed court hearing."
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STORY: "How a Stuff investigation exposed a secret police tactic, and led to its downfall," by Reporters Mike White and Blair Ensor, published by 'Stuff,' on June 13, 2025. (Mike White is a senior writer, specialising in longform features and investigations.He has been a journalist for 25 years, and has worked as a correspondent in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Prior to working for Stuff, he spent 17 years as a senior writer with North & South magazine, where he won more than 20 national journalism awards, including the country's top award, the Wolfson Fellowship to Cambridge University. He is the author of two books...Blair Ensor is a senior journalist at Stuff, with more than a decade's experience. Focused largely on crime and justice issues, he has worked as a reporter in Wellington, Christchurch and Marlborough. He has also held the positions of Canterbury-Otago chief news director and Auckland editor."
SUB-HEADING: "The Complex Investigation Phased Engagement Model (CIPEM) was used by police during interviews in five cold cases."
GIST: "Nearly four years ago, Stuff reporters Mike White and Blair Ensor began an investigation into a controversial police tactic. The investigation revealed a false confession and damning judicial comments, sparked multiple reviews, and led to the abandonment of the controversial method, and an overhaul of police interviewing. This is the story of that investigation.
In 2021, whispers started, and rumours began.
There was talk of a secret police interviewing technique being exposed. One that had gone too far. That had caused a false confession in a high-profile murder case.
The talk reached two Stuff reporters, from different areas: The police, and legal sources.
It soon became clear that the technique, dubbed CIPEM (Complex Investigation Phased Engagement Model) by its architect, Detective Superintendent Tom Fitzgerald, had been the subject of a suppressed court hearing.
That hearing related to a confession by a suspect in the 2016 murder of Upper Hutt woman Lois Tolley, who’d been shot point blank in her home after four intruders burst in.
Fitzgerald had worked in the Criminal Investigation Branch since 1993, said he’d been involved in 100 homicide investigations, including conducting controversial interviews in the cases against Scott Watson, and Mauha Fawcett, and had a longstanding interest in interviewing strategies.
In 2018, with the police commissioner’s approval, Fitzgerald assembled an elite group of interviewers, some with backgrounds in dealing with secret informants, to implement CIPEM, his trademarked “suspect targeting system".
The technique emphasised empathy over confrontation, putting suspects in hard to crack cold cases at ease, in the hope they would talk. As a judge later put it, it appeared more “fireside chat” than accusatory interrogation.
In August 2019, Fitzgerald shoulder-tapped two of his crack interviewers to speak with a suspect in the Tolley case, which had stalled, and was running on the dregs of informant gossip.
Over the course of three days, the officers eventually coaxed a confession from the suspect that he pulled the trigger - despite his description not matching known facts about the crime.
In another case, Fitzgerald’s team believed they gained a confession from a woman suspected of killing a toddler, but missing files meant they couldn’t charge her.
And in October, someone confessed in a CIPEM interview to murdering Christchurch woman Angela Blackmoore, cracking a case that had stumped police since 1995.
Police hierarchy were euphoric at the success of Fitzgerald and his team, the police’s national crime manager, Detective Superintendent Tim Anderson, circulating an enthused email lauding them as “strategic hunters”.
In mid-2019, Fitzgerald claimed to two assistant commissioners that CIPEM had 100% success in getting confessions or eliminating suspects.
Training for CIPEM interviewers was expanded, with some of the country’s most senior officers, including Assistant Commissioner Lauano Sue Schwalger and Tim Anderson, attending sessions.
But two years later, CIPEM’s sheen began to tarnish.
How the collapse began
In the first challenge to its use, a High Court judge ruled the “confession” in the Lois Tolley case wasn’t credible.
Justice Simon France excoriated the interviews that had led to this, saying the suspect had been manipulated into admissions that were “very flawed”.
He ruled officers repeatedly made serious breaches of police interviewing guidelines; engaged in unnecessarily persistent questioning designed to wear down the suspect; misrepresented facts; their interview style was “improper”; and the CIPEM technique was used to “unacceptable excess”.
Justice France concluded the confession had been “improperly obtained by an unfair process”, and ruled it couldn’t be used at any trial.The charges against the suspect were withdrawn. Shortly after, murder charges against two other suspects were dropped.
The case collapsed, and remains unsolved and stagnating after nine years.
Further problems began emerging about CIPEM.
After Stuff obtained the transcript of a CIPEM interview in the case of 1-year-old Penny-Tui Taputoro, one of the country’s most respected lawyers, Nigel Hampton, KC, labelled it “very troubling” and “oppressive”.
“I've seen some … extreme interviews over the years, but I've never seen anything quite like this.”
CIPEM’s creator, Tom Fitzgerald, staunchly defended his model in the wake of criticism around the Lois Tolley suspect interview, suggesting mistakes had been made by the interviewing officers, Detective Senior Sergeant Steve Anderson and Detective Sergeant Dylan Ross, and they would learn from them, “like all of us”. This was despite Fitzgerald organising the interviews and controlling them from a monitor’s room - a fact only uncovered by Stuff’s investigation.
But Fitzgerald was sufficiently concerned by emerging criticism of CIPEM that he quickly sought a review of his technique - which had been officially operating for nearly three years by then with the approval of police top brass, but hadn’t been subject to checks whether it met international standards.
So he contacted international interviewing expert Mary Schollum, who had previously worked for New Zealand police, and asked her to review the model.
In a move that shocked Fitzgerald, Schollum initially rejected elements of CIPEM, saying it appeared to encourage the interviewer to employ “psychologically manipulative tactics” designed to elicit confessions from suspects.
But after Fitzgerald asked her to treat her report as a “draft”, and convinced her, over nearly 10 hours of discussions that passages were just badly worded, Schollum did a U-turn and endorsed the technique as conforming to international best practice.
It was a shield police repeatedly used to defend CIPEM from growing criticism.
It was also an endorsement Schollum later came to regret - and retract.
STUFF
Anatomy of an investigation
As soon as rumours about CIPEM started circulating in 2021, Stuff began requesting details of it, using the Official Information Act.
Police initially claimed no information about CIPEM existed, or couldn’t be found.
Under pressure from Stuff, which had already been leaked documents and emails, police eventually acknowledged there were actually 4000 documents about CIPEM, but claimed they were mainly “administrative in nature”, and would require too many resources to sift through, so they again refused to release any information.
After repeated complaints from Stuff, the Ombudsman finally ruled police had acted unreasonably in refusing the requests, and not making efforts to find information they knew existed, and ordered them to go back and start again.
This time, police were forced to hand over hundreds of pages of emails and documents, which shed light on what had occurred, and exposed the five cases where police said CIPEM had been officially used.
The cycle of police refusal, complaints, and eventual release of documents, occurred throughout the following three years. However, even when information was finally disclosed by police, large parts were blacked out.
But what was revealed was growing irritation and anger at Stuff’s investigations, with emails showing Fitzgerald questioning the trustworthiness of journalists and claiming they would “put a spin” on stories; calling on his superiors to demand an apology over a headline he claimed was false; and expressing concerns about leaks within police, and officers criticising CIPEM.
It also exposed the lengths police went to internally with communications staff to portray CIPEM as benign and unimpeachable.
In essence police took a “Nothing to see here” position, despite serious questions mounting about CIPEM.
Fitzgerald had always claimed there was nothing to hide about CIPEM, and no secrets, as it was just common sense and good policing.
But the way police attempted to stymie Stuff’s investigations proved the very opposite.
On two occasions, Stuff was forced to go to the High Court to have documents released - both times the judge agreeing that there was legitimate public interest in this happening.
When Stuff tried to obtain the report police commissioned into the Lois Tolley investigation and CIPEM’s use, written by Auckland lawyer Aaron Perkins, KC, police again fought to keep it hidden, citing legal privilege.
When Stuff challenged this ruling with the Ombudsman, Police Commissioner Andy Coster requested a face to face meeting with the Ombudsman to press his views - which then Ombudsman Peter Boshier acceded to, while refusing Stuff the same opportunity, before siding with police and keeping the report secret.
When Fitzgerald suddenly resigned in October 2022, in a move that shocked many colleagues, (Fitzgerald said he had been planning his retirement for some time, and it had nothing to do with criticism of CIPEM) police began claiming they couldn’t answer questions about CIPEM because that information was only known to Fitzgerald - despite it being a police programme.
But discontent with CIPEM led to police sources frequently leaking information to Stuff.
As scrutiny of the technique continued, internal disagreement among police emerged about its continued use.
In December 2022, Stuff was leaked an email written by Steve Anderson, who was nominally in charge of CIPEM after Fitzgerald’s retirement, telling staff the technique’s use had been suspended.
But when questioned, then Assistant Commissioner Lauano Sue Schwalger attempted to shut down the discussion by claiming Stuff’s information was “mistaken and inaccurate”.
However, two days later, police were forced to admit Stuff was correct, but once more laid the blame with Anderson, saying his email was “incorrect and should not have been sent”, and backtracked, saying CIPEM’s use in cold cases would continue.
The extraordinary step by the police’s hierarchy to publicly blame individual staff for mistakes, rather than support them, further eroded confidence in those in Police National Headquarters who were making decisions about CIPEM.
Even Detective Sergeant Dylan Ross, who had initially defended the way he was treated over the Lois Tolley interviews, wrote to other CIPEM-trained staff advising them not to use the technique: “Unfortunately, from experience, I cannot assure you that there will be support down the track.
“It is vital to Det Inspector Steve Anderson and I that none of you experience the kind of situation that we have been confronted with over the last year.”
Stuff has spoken with officers and former police who had knowledge of, or were involved with, CIPEM, and been told officers’ experiences regarding CIPEM contributed to some staff quitting the force.
Staff involved with CIPEM later told the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) they felt the Tolley interviewers were unfairly blamed for being the sole cause of the case collapsing against the suspect, and there were other serious problems with the broader investigation.
They wanted the Perkins report released to provide that context, something the IPCA later also agreed with, but police still haven’t released it.
A source who knew the CIPEM team involved in the Tolley interviews told Stuff they believed the Perkins report “accurately details the core failings of the investigation”. Police’s refusal to release the report “subsequently led to the misrepresentation of the facts relating to why the case was withdrawn”, the source said.
The fallout from CIPEM went further than individuals feeling they were being thrown under the bus by top brass, though. In October 2022, police launched a full review of all police interviewing - including CIPEM.
The crucial U-Turn
After a battle in court, Stuff gained access to CIPEM training material. Upon reading, there appeared to be similarities in some aspects with the widely discredited Reid Technique of interrogation, used in America to gain confessions.
Tom Fitzgerald had always insisted his model had nothing to do with the Reid Technique, which presumes the person being interviewed is guilty.
But when Stuff forwarded sections of CIPEM material to Mary Schollum, she began having misgivings about signing off on CIPEM meeting international best standards.
In a dramatic move, Schollum withdrew her support for CIPEM, saying she felt foolish, and was sorry for not highlighting CIPEM contained elements of the Reid Technique
“Yes, I hold my hand up and have to say that I now feel the conclusions that I reached were wrong.
“I feel a bit stupid now. And all I can really say in my defence is that I did my review and that final report in good faith, but some of the conclusions are not right.”
Schollum said police had failed to provide her with crucial documents, despite having requested them, and she hadn’t seen how CIPEM was used in practice.
If she had received all the information, “it would have been a whole different report”, Schollum said.
She later stated she had been “put in a position by Tom Fitzgerald which led me to write a positive report about CIPEM”.
Schollum’s rejection of CIPEM, despite it containing elements she supported, left police with few options.
Eventually, Coster asked one of his deputies to check if CIPEM was still being used.
She replied: “CIPEM is not and will not be used, now or in the future.”
CIPEM, which had begun with hoopla and everyone wanting to share its success, ended with ignominy and everyone running to distance themselves from it, a source said.
As one person later told the IPCA: “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.”
AN OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION:
Three complaints were made to the IPCA regarding CIPEM.
Late last month, after a nearly three-year investigation, the IPCA released its report, which had been expanded to look at the broader issue of police investigative interviewing.
It criticised elements of CIPEM as being linked to the manipulative Reid Technique for extracting confessions; said normal processes for its implementation and oversight weren’t followed; said police leadership failed to adequately support officers who came under scrutiny; accepted CIPEM interviewers misled or manipulated suspects in three cases; stated some CIPEM interviews involved actions that were “contrary to either legal requirements or good practice”, or were “extremely poor practice”; judged Fitzgerald’s claims police weren’t seeking a confession in the Tolley case not credible; noted two CIPEM interviewers who “went too far”; and concluded Fitzgerald should have intervened in "objectionable" interviews, and his failure to do so had to be interpreted as acquiescence with the tactics used.
The IPCA said Mary Schollum was “justified in feeling aggrieved” about not receiving all relevant information, but it did not have enough evidence to say Fitzgerald or anyone else in police deliberately misled her or withheld material from her.
The watchdog said it did “not think it likely that [Fitzgerald] was generally motivated to deceive her”.
“We think it is more likely that, given his personal investment in and commitment to the model, and the pressure that he was under at the time … he was simply motivated in the short term to defuse rather than add to criticism.”
While strongly criticising aspects of some of the CIPEM interviews, the IPCA found “these failures were generally not integral to CIPEM and were due to poor practice and inadequate oversight”. It also said the model was “a laudable attempt to enhance officers’ investigative interviewing skills” but “its implementation fell short in several respects”.
However, sources argue the findings presented an inaccurate picture of what occurred in many instances, appeared critical of the media’s reporting of CIPEM, and the watchdog seemed to have accepted virtually everything Fitzgerald told investigators.
The IPCA was challenged on these matters by Stuff, but said it was satisfied its report accurately reflected its analysis.
It denied being critical of media reporting. “We have not set out to paint the media’s role in a particular light, and are of course grateful for the role it plays in bringing matters of public interest to the fore.”
It then told Stuff it was refusing to provide any further responses about its report.
Ultimately, its only recommendation was that police establish a Manager of Investigative Interviewing - something police’s own review of investigative interviewing had already proposed.
As one former police officer put it, “They’ve been Tommed.”
(Attempts to contact Fitzgerald and obtain his response proved unsuccessful.)
Another source with knowledge of CIPEM was aghast at the IPCA’s “whitewashing” of the troublesome technique, despite it now being repudiated by both international experts, and police themselves.
They were surprised how “weak” and “bland” the IPCA’s critique was, and how it relied heavily on what Fitzgerald claimed happened.
“That’s what got us to this point in the first place.”
They claimed scarcely anyone in the police would now support CIPEM or Fitzgerald.
“All police investigation methods must stand the test, and this never did.”
The source said very senior officers knew of problems with CIPEM, elements of which had been used for many years before it was officially implemented.
Some challenged Fitzgerald about it.
Others turned a blind eye.
Others hailed it as a remarkable innovation, while knowing it wasn’t.
The source questioned how Fitzgerald’s system was able to circumvent police protocols and procedures, and operate with little oversight and no auditing.
Those in authority showed incredibly poor judgment and leadership skills, the source said, and the impact was far-reaching.
“The damage is done.”
The IPCA said that during its investigation, some people “expressed the view that only a crisis like this would motivate police leadership to start properly addressing the problems with investigative interviewing; a view with which we have some sympathy”.
A source agreed with this, saying: “I think the silver lining of this whole process is that it forced the organisation to relook at its interviewing, its training, and its practices. It's a bad way to get to this point, but we've got here, and now they're trying to implement this, putting a lot of emphasis into changing our interviewing model.”
A new way forward
One of those in the spotlight for not exerting greater control over Fitzgerald and CIPEM is current Police Commissioner Richard Chambers.
Chambers was Assistant Commissioner Investigations during the period CIPEM was rolled out in 2018 and 2019.
But he told Stuff he was across “very, very little” of the day to day operations of CIPEM, and didn’t get into the details.
However, in August 2019, Fitzgerald sent Chambers an email explicitly outlining all CIPEM cases, and their progress. Chambers suggested this was done as a courtesy, and distanced himself from the subsequent fallout about CIPEM, saying he’d moved on by that time.
He said, with the benefit of hindsight, there should have been more checks and balances around CIPEM.
But he stressed those behind the tactic were attempting to do the right thing, to fix the state of police interviewing skills, which were in a poor state.
“Unfortunately, some things didn't go quite so well, and ... that's something we all own and we learn from.”
Chambers’ predecessor, Andy Coster, repeatedly refused to be interviewed by Stuff about CIPEM, but Chambers has been up fro
He personally phoned staff caught up in the CIPEM scandal, to apologise for police not supporting them as the method came under scrutiny. (He doesn’t have a view on whether the Perkins report should be released, as some CIPEM officers want, as he hasn’t read it.)
But he accepted that scrutiny was necessary, because investigative interviewing was such a critical part of police work.
To that end, the police’s two-year review of investigative interviewing had identified numerous areas for improvement.
“We've got work to do … There's certainly no shortage of opportunities.""
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
