The extraordinary spectacle of crime re-enactment in Thailand has a new star.  Former Chamberlain of the Royal Household Bureau Montri Sotangkur, who worked for the erstwhile Royal Consort Srirasm (family name withheld for reasons of total confusion) but never for HRH Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, has for days been ferried around town in what looks suspiciously like the same perp shirt to the scenes of his various nefarious alleged crimes.

Montri (who was never employed by HRH the Crown Prince) has been taken to an office building where he allegedly trousered a shady real estate deal commission, to a bank where allegedly ill-gotten gains were deposited, and to the boardrooms of various large corporations where, in his handcuffs, he clearly pointed out the chairs representing the board seats he improperly occupied.  It is alleged that he got membership of these boards after making false claims about his connection with the household of HRH the Crown Prince (for whom he never in fact worked).  And all this takes place amid a travelling circus of high-ranking police officers and media newshounds.

And for what purpose?

The reasoning behind Thai crime re-enactments has been questioned many times over.  In most countries, a re-enactment takes place without the presence of any suspect, indeed before a suspect has been apprehended.  A police officer, for example, may dress like the victim of an assault and follow the same route at about the same time of day as the original crime.  The clip is publicized in the hope of jogging the memory of potential witnesses.

But here, and in South Korea and a few other countries, a re-enactment is not so much part of the investigation process as a cheap form of reality TV with an in-house audience of cops, media and vengeful crowds. 

Can a re-enactment establish guilt?  This depends on how much the police already know about how the crime was committed from sources other than the suspect.  If the re-enactment shows that the suspect was aware of some detail that the police have worked out and have kept secret, and that only the perpetrator would know, then this would be evidence suggesting guilt.

However, the majority of Thai re-enactments follow confessions, some later retracted, so just about all the information the police have comes from the suspect and the re-enactment shows nothing new.  And in any case, police officers often act as would-be film directors, telling the suspects how they supposedly committed the crime rather than watching them do it, further contaminating any evidence. 

So can a re-enactment establish innocence?  If a suspect is not guilty, then they will likely as not get the re-enactment wrong, because they won’t know how the crime was actually committed.  And if they are guilty, they could deliberately get the re-enactment wrong, so as to look innocent.  So unless the police have some hidden mind-reading powers (which to be honest, some seem to think they have), a re-enactment is perfectly useless in terms of proof.

But then it doesn’t matter.  In all serious crimes (those carrying a penalty of more than 5 years, which are exactly those that get re-enacted), judges are instructed to ignore confessions during the investigative phase (and denials).

But the police give other reasons for re-enactments.  One Metropolitan Police specialist tortuously explained that each criminal behaves differently in committing a crime.  Re-enactments help the police learn the details on how criminals commit each crime (although since re-enactments always occur before a trial, these are still suspects, not criminals).  Now they can track down other criminals showing the same behaviour pattern, which, if you recall where we started, is different for each criminal.  So they’ll be tracking down criminals that don’t exist. 

Then Pol Col Chalotorn Sitthipanya once explained the necessity for re-enactments to the National Human Rights Commission, back in the days when the NHRC was concerned about human rights and how re-enactments might infringe the rights of suspects.  Re-enactments show the public how not to be victims of crimes, he said, and also that committing crimes is a Bad Thing. 

Bear that in mind at the next re-enactment of, say, a child rape case.  The re-enactment is needed to show other children how not to be raped.  Got that?  And without the re-enactment, how would anyone know that raping a child is wrong?  Thank goodness we have a police force that has sorted out these tricky ethical questions for us.  And this method of crime prevention has over the years proved so effective that it will start showing an impact on crime figures any day now.

I am sure there is a way for re-enactments to serve a useful purpose.  But it would first require the police to act with some common sense.

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).