Neurodivergence & Disadvantage in Police Interviews

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Melanie Jameson

BA, PGCE, RSA Dip in SpLD, Associate Member of the British Dyslexia Assn.

Dyslexia Consultancy Malvern www.dyslexia-malvern.co.uk 

Email mj@dyslexia-malvern.co.uk

The focus of this blog is a major subgroup within the umbrella of Neurodivergence (ND): namely the overlapping conditions of Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyscalculia and high-functioning Autism. It is largely based on my observations of undertaking assessments and witnessing this group in criminal justice settings and over many years.

A range of well-known and lesser-known difficulties

This blog explores the impact of ND areas of difficulty during police interviews and considers what guidance and provisions are in place to enable the police to pick up on ND behaviours and not be unintentionally misled

Difficulties with fluent reading and writing are well documented in the case of Dyslexia (British Dyslexia Association, 2025). In the custody context, these would relate to the composition and checking of a statement. When your focus has been on grasping the import of and responding to questioning, there is little mental energy left for the all-important statement. Effort is diverted to spelling and handwriting, so this written record may fail to reflect the writer’s intentions and include inaccuracies. Dictation may not be the solution if verbal fluency and accurate recall are additional problem areas.

The core skills of careful listening and speaking ‘to the point’ are also required to navigate a police interview. Inconsistency can undermine credibility, hesitations and misunderstandings may seem evasive. Coping with police questioning also places heavy demands on working memory, namely the ability to hold on to information while formulating a response. Simultaneously, the suspect must maintain concentration and block out distractions.

A core problem arises for ND people who rely heavily on various items of technology to function, but must hand in phones and tablets before questioning. Denying them the use of these tools is essentially depriving them of disability aids.

Two further issues are less well known but even more debilitating. Impaired Executive Function is common in ND people, affecting organisation and planning abilities, self-reflection and monitoring, prioritising, flexibility in choosing strategies, difficulty shifting attention as required, and following a change in direction in the discourse. Secondly, , stress: this exacerbates the individual’s particular ND problems while dismantling their carefully constructed coping strategies. (Jameson, 2004). 

All these traits are symptomatic of the ND population in which I specialise, casting doubt on the validity of an Early Guilty plea. As the suspect struggles to cope with questioning while experiencing mental overload and high levels of stress, anything that appears to shorten the process will seem attractive, regardless of innocence/guilt/partial guilt.

It is to be hoped that these suspects will come within the scope of the revised Function Test now integrated within the Police and Criminal Evidence Act Code of Practice C (henceforth Code C). Criteria include: “Not understanding the significance of information, questions or replies; confusion; high levels of suggestibility, and tendency to compliance”. This last item may be especially pertinent to people with Dyspraxia who may have played a minor role in a criminal enterprise, but are at risk of admitting to more, as they become overloaded and just want the interview to end.

Communication and support options

Guidance in Code C states that the term ‘communication’ should be interpreted widely, and that the individual does not need to be suffering from a particular (mental) health condition in order to receive support. Appropriate Adults or Registered Intermediaries can be called in to assist in this vital area. It is argued that, when the former have been accredited by the National Appropriate Adult Network, and trained in the vulnerabilities and support needs of ND people, they are best placed to provide support. The use of Registered Intermediaries requires a higher level of communication impairment and, in my experience, is rarely available to this group.

A healthcare professional (HCP) may be asked to assess support needs. Unfortunately s/he may lack training in the wider implications of ND because Dyslexia and Dyscalculia (less so, ADHD and Autism) are usually seen as falling into the ‘educational’ rather than ‘medical’ sphere. Meanwhile Dyspraxia is generally seen in terms of motor skill function rather than the cluster of problem areas that dyspraxic adults encounter; these include anxiety in unfamiliar situations, difficulty judging socially acceptable behaviour, difficulty retrieving information ‘on the spot’. Speech may come out over-loud and be interpreted as ‘aggression’.

Another human resource is the suspect’s parents. They are generally excluded from the criminal justice process when a suspect is over 18, but may often be best placed to provide information on the needs and disability of a suspect.

Disability provisions and the Equality Act

How do ND and disadvantage link to the issue of disability? The ‘protected characteristic’ of disability will often apply to ND people, as stated in the following definition in the Equality Act 2010: “a person has a disability if he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day to day activities”‘ This terminology does not represent a ‘best fit’ for Dyslexia and related conditions – the impairment would be better characterised as ‘cognitive’ rather than ‘physical’ or ‘mental’ (as in the definition).

Guidance to the Act explains the duty to make reasonable adjustments to remove barriers. A consideration of three requirements arises, summarised as (1) changing the way things are done; (2) making changes to overcome barriers created by the physical features of premises; and (3) providing extra aids and services. They apply where a disabled person would otherwise be placed at a substantial disadvantage compared with the non-disabled. The first and third of these are most relevant to ND people – the second one could relate, for example, to fluorescent lighting where suspects have light sensitivity. As a public service, the police are subject to these requirements. Foremost amongst appropriate reasonable adjustments is providing breaks to restore concentration.

Guidance and Training

Government funded research (Rack, 2005) concluded that almost 20% of prisoners sampled were affected by Dyslexia and related conditions to the extent that their learning and employment prospects were compromised. This proportion will also relate to ND police suspects – many of whom will be unaware of the cause of their struggles. It seems obvious that the widespread occurrence of Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, ADHD, Dyscalculia and Autism, and the nature of the associated difficulties, should lead to improved training and CPD – both in general awareness and more detailed support needs.

Research by the Westminster Achievability Commission (2018) emphasises the overlapping nature of the conditions mentioned above, blurring the boundaries between them. This too should be reflected in training; a useful reference document is the College of Policing’s publication on neurodiversity (CoP, 2022). Furthermore, by now the Neurodiversity Action Plan (Ministry of Justice, 2023), should have been implemented across all criminal justice sectors. Screening tools which illustrate best practice were expected to be amongst its provisions, to supplement or replace the varied basic risk assessment processes used in custody suites.

Conclusions

I welcome new resources and the evolution of the Code C which places an obligation on the police to determine if someone is ‘otherwise mentally vulnerable’ beyond known diagnosed conditions. However, this support for ND suspects, in the person of an Appropriate Adult or Registered Intermediary, is still not always requested or made available.  

There is no doubt in my mind that ND leads to disadvantage, since responding to police questioning requires just those skills that correlate with innate ND difficulties.

Until there is comprehensive awareness and training in ND, people with dyslexia and related conditions continue to be ‘vulnerable’ throughout the criminal justice process.

A final thought: it is worth considering how police officers with autism and/or dyslexia (neither is uncommon in the police service) handle suspects with the same conditions.

References

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