Letter: Psychology of the Rachel Nickell trial

Sir: The fiasco of the Rachel Nickell murder trial ('Man freed as Nickell murder trial collapses', 15 September) has shown up faults both in the police investigation and in the Crown Prosecution Service's handling of the case. But behind both of these was the 'expert' on whose advice they were operating.

Paul Britton is an 'expert' psychologist. He led police to believe that he had enough insight into human behaviour to make meaningful predictions. In fact psychology is incapable of predicting behaviour with any accuracy at all. Most psychologists, even, would admit this.

As a result of the police's reliance on psychological 'profiling', either an innocent man has spent a year in prison, or a murderer has escaped justice because the prosecution case was too flawed to stand up in court. Either way a grave injustice has occurred and the cost in police and court time is immense.

Decades of psychological 'rehabilitation' in our prisons has meant that the vast majority of ex-prisoners reoffend. Psychology in our schools has led to increasing levels of basic illiteracy. When will the public authorities wake up to this history of no-results and consign this bogus science to the bin, where it belongs.

Yours faithfully,

WENDY LAWSON

Pangbourne,

Berkshire

16 September