People

Professor Ray Bull

Emeritus Professor of Forensic Psychology

School/Department: Psychology and Vision Sciences, School of

Telephone: +44 (0)789 518 4692

Email: rhb10@leicester.ac.uk

Profile

In 2014 he became President of the European Association of Psychology and Law (until 2017). In 2010 Ray was “Elected by acclaim” an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society (this honour is restricted to a maximum of 40 living psychologists). In 2009 Ray received from the 'International Investigative Interviewing Research Group' the 'Senior Academic Award' for his 'significant lifetime contribution to the field of investigative interviewing'. In 2008 Ray received from the European Association of Psychology and Law the ‘Award for Life-time Contribution to Psychology and Law’. He has authored/co-authored over 240 research publications and has advised a large number of police forces in a great variety of countries on investigative interviewing as well as testifying as an expert witness in many court cases.

Research

Conducts research on the investigative interviewing of suspects witnesses and victims.

Publications

Cleary, H., & BULL, R.  (2021).  Police interrogation and suspects' confession decision making. Law and Human Behavior.    DOI: 10.1037/lhb0000459

Leahy-Harland, S., & BULL, R.  (2021). The impact of context on real-life serious crime interviews with suspects. Police Practice and Research, 22, 1009-1026.

Sandham, A., Dando, C., BULL, R., & Ormerod. T. (2021). Improving professional observers' veracity judgements by tactical interviewing. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology.

Baker-Eck, B., BULL, R., & Walsh, D.  (2021). Investigative empathy: Five types of cognitive empathy in a field study of investigative interviews with suspects of sexual offences.  Investigative Interviewing: Research and Practice, 11, 28-38.

Zeng, F., Huang, C-Y., & BULL, R.  (2021).   Police interviews of suspects in China: Developments and analyses.  International Journal of Police Science and Management.

BULL, R., & Milne, R. (2020).  Recommendations for collecting event memory evidence.  

In J. Pozzulo, E. Pica, and C. Sheahan (Eds.) Memory and sexual misconduct: Psychological research for criminal justice. New York: Routledge.

BULL, R., & Baker, B. (2020).  Obtaining from suspects valid discourse 'PEACE'-fully: What role for rapport and empathy?  In M. Mason and F. Rock (Eds.) The discourse of police interviews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Baker-Eck, B., BULL, R., & Walsh, D. (2020). Investigative empathy: A strength scale of empathy based on European police perspectives.   Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 27, 412-417.

Almansoori, R., Milne, R., & BULL, R.  (In press). Exploring investigative interviewing: A Dubai perspective.  International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice.

Supervision

due to being Emeritus/retired.

Teaching

due to being Emeritus/retired.

Press and media

The investigative interviewing of suspects witnesses and victims.

Activities

I have been asked to write ‘Expert’ reports in around 160 cases and have testified in courts on over 60 occasions including in December 2020 at the national Court of Appeal in New Zealand. Among the cases/inquiries that I have been involved in are ‘The Lockerbie Inquiry/Bombing of flight Panam 103’ for The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission; ‘The Litvinenko Inquiry’; ‘The Longcare Inquiry’.

In 2018 I accepted the invitation to be a member of the small ’Steering Committee’ that played the central role in writing the extensive guidance document on ‘investigative interviewing’ as recommended to the United Nations by its ‘Special Rapportuer’ Professor Juan Mendez. This substantial document was finalised in 2021 and is available at https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/center/publications/documents/principles-on-effective-interviewing/

In 2020 I was commissioned by the organisation ‘Hedayah: Countering Violent Extremism’ to assist in the writing of an extensive manual on talking with people.

In October 2020 I was re-appointed an ‘Assessor’ (ongoing) for the National Dutch Register of Expert Witnesses (Nederlands Register Gerechtelik Deskundigen). 

Awards

World Rankings - In March 2021 Ray was informed that Stanford University and Elsevier had created a database of 160000 top scientists providing data on the global influence of academic study using a variety of impact metrics such as: citations h-index and the co-authorship hm-index. Data were analysed for (a) career-long (until the end of 2019) and (b) single year (i.e. 2019) impact. Ray’s name was included in (a) the top 2% of scientists regarding data based across their career and (b) in the top 4% of scientists based on the citation year 2019. In 2014 Ray became (for three years) ‘President’ of the European Association of Psychology and Law. In 2010 Ray was “Elected by acclaim” an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society “for the contribution made to the discipline of psychology”. (This honour has been restricted to no more than 40 living psychologists.) In 2008 he received from the European Association of Psychology and Law an “Award for Life-time Contribution to Psychology and Law”.

Qualifications

DSc.

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