Leslea and I have been excited from the minute Steve van Aperen agreed to be a keynote speaker at this years conference in September. So we were thrilled yesterday when we got to interview him for a video for this blog.

Steve is essentially a “human lie detector” and my word he is good at it, but that’s no surprise given his experience.

In ’96 Steve was a police detective in Victoria who had been involved in many high-profile cases, including the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain. He really wanted to understand why some detectives (himself included) weren’t very good at spotting deception, so decided to visit the FBI academy (Virginia) and LAPD for some training.

From that experience Steve became the first Australian police officer to become a qualified polygraph examiner but felt it more effective to have the skills to detect deception without “the hardware”. From that point this became his full time career.

An interesting comment Steve makes is so very applicable to Market Research “There is no such thing as a bad interviewee; just a bad interviewer. If your questions are not clear, concise, succinct and direct and it allows a deceptive person wriggle room. Bad questions also allow a deceptive person to minimise, justify and rationalise their behaviour.”

”My training can be divided into three main areas: learning how to detect deception; reading, understanding and analysing body language; and how to conduct effective interviews that elicit information,” he says.

van Aperen teaches police departments, customs, defence and government agencies how to analyse deceptive verbal and non-verbal cues and use behavioural analysis questions that exonerate the innocent and trip the guilty. He guarantees ”All participants will come away with useful tools to assist them in detecting deceptive behaviour,”

Steve has been involved in a number of high profile cases including:

* The McDonalds McScratch & Win competition where a number of contestants claimed that they did not cheat to unlawfully gain prizes;
* A polygraph test conducted on the leader of the Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett;
* A polygraph test conducted on Frank Cole relating to his disclosure that he located Azaria Chamberlain’s body at Ayers Rock in 1981 after he shot at a dingo;
* The polygraph test of Mike Scrafton, a senior government advisor, regarding a telephone conversation he had with the Prime Minister of Australia Mr. John Howard in relation to the “children overboard” scandal;
* The polygraph test of Ron Vigenser the person accused by John Ford of being involved in the placement of 4.1 kilograms of cannabis into Schapelle Corby’s luggage at Bali airport. Ford testified at Corby’s trial in Bali that he overheard conversations whilst an inmate at Port Phillip prison that implicated Vigenser;
* The polygraph test of Gareth Bunce who publicly admitted on Australian television that he murdered Margaret Wagner in 1997;
* The behavioural analysis of interviews conducted by Liz Hayes of 60 Minutes with Schapelle Corby the Australian woman charged with importing 4.1 kilograms of cannabis into Indonesia inside a body board bag; and
* The analysis of an interview conducted by Tara Brown of 60 Minutes with former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib denying his involvement in terrorism or links with al-Qaeda.