The Jigsaw Man

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For all you aspiring forensic and criminal psychologists out there, if you’re looking for a bit of summer reading, I’d highly recommend The Jigsaw Man. What he searches for at the scene of the crime are not fingerprints – he looks for the ‘mind trace’ left behind by those responsible: the psychological characteristics that can help the police identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator.” The police decided that there was now enough evidence and brought charges . After twelve months in prison, the undercover investigation and its methods in the trial were heavily criticized by Judge Justice Ognall and judged to be unsuitable for providing evidence and rejected. In his judgment he wrote: " [..] I fear that this behavior not only reveals exaggerated zeal, but also represents a massive attempt to incriminate a suspect through clearly deceptive behavior of the most offensive kind. [..] Any attempt, the material collected through the undercover investigation processing and using is doomed to failure. [..] The prosecution tried to convince me that the purpose of the exercise was to induce the defendant to either exonerate himself or to further incriminate himself. I feel compelled to state that I consider this account of the action to be highly insincere. ". Other experts who were brought into the trials at a later point in time also said that the recorded conversations between Lizzie James and Colin Stagg had such a suggestive pornographic character that they could not believe it. The charges against Stagg were dropped. This one now sued the police for compensation.

What he searches for at the crime scene are not frinerprints, fibres or bloodstains - he looks for the 'mind trace' left behind by those responsible: the psychological characteristics that can help the police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator. From the end of the 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s, the population was unsettled by a series of rapes that took place in the parks in the southern green belt of London connected by the Green Chain Walk . In one case, the perpetrator broke into a residential building located on the road, easily visible from the park, and committed the crime there. Although the victims sometimes gave very different descriptions of the perpetrator, the DNA traces revealed the perpetration of a single man. You can't put it down because you wouldn't sleep , until you knew the people responsible for the crimes were safely behind bars.Since 1983 he has been advising police services across the country on serious criminal cases free of charge in his spare time. The relevant international psychological literature as well as the results of his own studies serve as the technical basis of his work. In 1990 he was commissioned by the British Home Office to write an expert opinion on the use of psychological perpetrator profiles in the British police and their so far completely unknown real utility. At the same time he should compare the use in the British system with that in the American and continental European systems.

BBC News, Oct. 30, 2002: charges against Paul Britton dropped (in English, with photo of Paul Britton) An intensely private and unassuming man, Britton has an almost mythic status in the field of crime deduction because of his ability to 'walk through the minds' of those who stalk, abduct, torture, rape and kill other human beings. What he searches for at the scene of a crime are not fingerprints, fibres or blood stains - he looks for the 'mind trace' left behind by those responsible; the psychological characteristics that can help police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator.Psychological profiler, Paul Britton details his involvement in helping the police to solve crimes, including high-profile cases of the 90s, such as Fred and Rose West and Jamie Bulger’s killers. The result is an interesting (if gruesome) perspective on criminality and police procedure. He may be attracted to some form of pornography that plays a role in his sexual fantasies. There would be some violent aspects to it and he would fantasize about similar experiences. For psychologists such as Canter the idea of a lone psychologist being called in ad hoc to help in police investigations cannot work. When he is asked at what point a psychologist should be brought into a police investigation his reply is simply: "Before the crime." A thrilling true-crime classic which will appeal to fans of Dahmer, The Murders at White House Farm, Mindhunter, Making a Murderer, and The Good Nurse