There is no such thing as a stupid question. So in that spirit let me ask what might look – at first glance – like stupid questions.

What is the purpose of an investigation?

To find out the facts relating to whatever allegation, claim or issue is being raised. 

It is not about allocating blame. That may come later. Nor is it about making the complainant feel good. Nor is it about reinforcing or justifying what people already believe. Or want to believe. No matter how senior or important they are (or think they are).

What is the one thing you need to carry out a good investigation?

An open mind. Not a prejudged one.

Obvious, yes?

Well, you’d like to think so, wouldn’t you. But no, not obvious at all. It’s harder than it looks. And it is easy for this to be skewed – almost without the investigator realizing it – by the people involved: both those doing the complaining and those about whom the allegations are made. Or by the potential implications of the outcomes. Or by the desire to please bosses. Or to be in line with the fashionable nostrums of the day. It takes a ruthless focus on the essentials of an investigation to avoid these risks.

Professionals can get this wrong

Even trained investigators such as the police can fall into these traps. A few years ago the Metropolitan Police adopted a policy of “believing the victim”, especially in sexual abuse cases. This led them to announcing in the case of some particularly unpleasant allegations of historic child abuse against well-known figures in 2016 (Operation Midland) that the allegations were true and believable before they had been investigated. Oh dear! What happened next was entirely predictable. Once the allegations were investigated it turned out that the complainant, far from being a victim, was a liar, had committed abuse himself and was prosecuted and convicted for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The belief that victims must be believed without question did not come from nowhere. It arose in part because of previous police failings when they treated those making allegations of serious – often sexual – abuse with harsh dismissiveness and as if they must be liars. So the reaction led to the police adopting the spuriously sentimental assumption that a victim should be believed without question. Doing so risks fatally confusing therapy and care with investigation. The former is laudable but not the investigator’s job. The latter is.

Ruthless analysis vs muddle-headed sentimentality

And what the latter demands above all is the judgement and analysis that makes investigators look coolly and dispassionately at the facts, to base their findings on what they have established and not what they (or others) would like to believe to be true. An investigator who allows sentimental beliefs, preconceived opinions, assumptions and prejudices and pressure from others to override the analysis and judgements they need to make is doing a profound disservice:

• to the victims – who need their complaints taken seriously and investigated properly, a crucially important difference to simply being believed;
• to those against whom allegations are made – who are entitled to have the accusations against them investigated properly; and
• to the confidence that others should have in the integrity of the investigative process. 

Why does this matter to me?

Well, regulators, especially in the UK, are now looking with a beady eye at how firms deal with non-financial misconduct i.e. how they monitor it, investigate it and, if found, what action they take. Such misconduct is likely to include personal behaviour: harassment, bullying, sexual misconduct and so on which may often involve assessing “he said/she said” allegations and where the evidence may be unclear or absent or colourable, one way or the other. Proper investigation and thoughtful evidence-based judgement will be needed, as well as care taken not to prejudice the position of either complainants or those being accused. 

If you want proof of that, you need look no further than to the FCA itself, which recently had to remove a report by the Financial Regulators Complaints Commissioner into allegations of bullying by its former Director of Enforcement. The report found that he had behaved in an “aggressive, unpleasant and bullying” manner towards a creditor of a collapsed firm and the complainant was told that their version of events was believed.

Why then was the report removed? Well, the senior executive had not been made aware of the complaint, had not had a chance to respond and potential witnesses to the allegations had not been approached. Oops!  

Good investigations and open minds. Harder to achieve than you might think.