HE is a human lie-detector, trained by the British Army's School of Service Intelligence to uncover the truth – every time.
From psychological testing, character profiling and forensically detailed observation of eye movement, tone of voice and body language, Drew McAdam is said to have an unfailing ability to expose lies.
Having worked in some of the toughest theatres
of war, specialising in counter-intelligence and counter-espionage throughout the 1980s and 1990s, his new title of The Interrogator is fitting. But the 49-year-old from Polbeth in West Lothian – who counts spoon-bender Uri Geller and master of illusion Derren Brown among his friends – is keen to point out that he's really a nice guy.
"I am – honestly," laughs Drew. "I feel quite uncomfortable with that title. I'm quite a likeable person, but I know how to switch it on and switch it off. When I am concentrating to get the truth, it can sometimes go dark."
His ability to "switch it on and off" is what landed Drew the role on Trisha Goddard's Channel Five talk show as their interrogator. Forget polygraphs, or so the publicity goes, he can do it all with his eyes – and mind.
"Usually stuff I do is very light-hearted. I do a lot of after-dinner stuff and a lot of it is demonstrations and experiments in reading body language," he explains. "I was doing it all almost as a mind-reading act."
Last year, he recorded a pilot for a BBC series, involving contestants trying to fool Drew in order to win £10,000. It never aired, but Channel Five were alerted.
"Someone saw part of the BBC film footage which was quite dark, almost like an interrogation-style from my days as an intelligence officer. The Trisha show wanted that added dimension."
Drew makes his debut on Friday, when he will work in a blacked-out interrogation suite, with hidden cameras. All that is in the room is The Interrogator and his "suspect".
"They are under a lot of pressure," laughs Drew. "This poor soul is about to go on national TV and I'm going to tell everyone he lied and how he did it. Part of my job is to take the stress away so they open up more, and you get more out of them.
"There was one guy who'd been accused of stealing money from his house. He'd been in a lot of trouble in the past, he'd been in the house at the time the money went missing and it had caused a big problem in the family. They were on the show as they wanted him to admit it.
"Once I got him in the interrogation suite, it was clear he didn't do it. But he did know who had stolen it. He didn't want to say who had stolen it, as the mother was dying and the father had had enough. I asked him to think of the name of the person who did, and I told him who it was. It was someone called Mark."
Charming and almost comedic, Drew is the atypical interrogator. So why do truths and lies fascinate him so much?
"'Cos I'm a geek," he jokes. "Nah, I just really like people. I've always been interested in why they do certain things. We all do mind-to-mind communication, we just aren't aware of it. You can walk into a room and instantly know if someone in there likes you or doesn't like you, or doesn't want you there. Someone could be telling you a story, but you think it's rubbish. You don't know why, but intuitively the voice, the sentence structure, the pitch everything is telling you it's wrong.
"Only 27 per cent of communication is verbal – the rest is non-verbal cues. If you learn how to read it, it's a very powerful language. Men are worse than women for communication. We don't have the same empathy as women do, we don't know how to put ourselves in other people's shoes. Men just don't notice it."
Mind-reading had always been a passion of Drew's and, even as a teenager, he would play with Zenna cards – similar to tarot cards – and use them to predict what his friends were thinking.
"I could work it out through their body language – the tip of the nose gave it away."
After leaving high school in North Berwick in 1976, Drew went into advertising, working as a copywriter. Then, in 1988, at the age of 29, he joined the Army, and was almost immediately drafted into intelligence work.
He spent five years in the role. "I worked in mainland UK and abroad. That's all I'm allowed to say. I learned so much. It brought out something inside of me, where they break someone down and then build them back up. At the time when they're breaking them, it's all psychological."
Leaving the Army in the mid 1990s after having "had enough" Drew went back into copywriting, and it wasn't long before his skills of persuasion meant he'd expanded into marketing, public relations and writing. His mind-reading skills were strictly a party piece and it wasn't until he did a turn at a friend's event at Dunblane Hydro eight years ago that a talent agent spotted him. Soon he was doing events professionally and reviewing shows for the Evening News.
"I met Uri Geller through the Evening News," he says. "I remember back in 1973 watching him on the David Dimbleby show. I thought, if I could do that (bend spoons] I could get a girl. A month later, I'd taught myself to do it."
With that, he picks up a spoon, rubs it between two fingers for about ten seconds and bends it to a 90 degree angle.
"It wasn't until ten years ago that we met. I did an interview with him for the Evening News and went to his show in Edinburgh. During the intermission of the show I was sitting near a couple of old ladies who couldn't wait for him to bend a spoon for them. So I did it for them, told them to wait for him after the show and get him to sign it, telling him who bent it."
Drew received an e-mail from an impressed Uri and they've been firm friends since.
Derren Brown is also a friend of Drew's. He says: "His work is closely linked to what I do. I use suggestion whereas he uses a lot more hypnosis. I put simple ideas into someone's head and I get simple ideas out. I can influence behaviour and choice and work out things through body language."
So has he ever used his skills to his advantage? "I've used it to get off paying parking charges," he laughs, recalling an incident on a visit to Aberdeen.
"Once, I parked the car and went to find out how much it was. I said to the man 'if I can tell you how much change you have in your pocket, will you wipe the slate free'. So I asked him to put the money in his hand and shake it about, while I looked at him and wrote the number down. I got it right and he let me off with it.
"The person behind me then said 'bloody hell' and I turned around and it was Billy Connolly."
He continues: "Everything I do, anyone can do. It just takes practice. I'm as psychic as a teapot. Everything I do is scientific and uses psychological testing."
Is he a good liar? "No," he smiles. "No-one is. The body doesn't lie."
• The Trisha Goddard Show is on Channel Five, Monday-Friday at 10.30am.HOW TO SPOT A LIAR"ANY one of these signs doesn't actually mean the person is lying," stresses Drew, who explains that he looks for a series of tell-tale signs to help him make up his mind. "What you're looking for is for someone to do something out of the ordinary. It's not what they say, but how they say it."
Here are his human lie-detector tips:1. Touching the mouth. When you were a child and told a lie, you didn't want the bad words to come out – so children cover their mouths when they're lying, and touching the mouth continues into adulthood.
2. Open palms. There are more nerve connections from your brain to your hands than from your brain to your eyes, so someone who is being open will talk with their palms showing. Someone who is lying tends to talk with their palms hidden.
3. Touching the face. When someone is lying they tend to be under stress. The blood pressure has gone up, there is more blood to the surface and it tickles. So they will touch their nose, ear – anything on their face. Indeed, police are trained to look for that when they're out in cars. Your nose literally grows.
4. Eye access. There are two hemispheres to the brain: one remembers and one is creative. When you ask someone ordinary questions, their eyes will go a certain way as they visualise it by accessing actual memory. When they're lying they reach for the creative hemisphere and their eyes go the opposite way. For those who are lying they will often stare right at you. But if you look carefully, their eyes will be slightly out of focus.
5. Tell the story backwards. No story is ever too perfect. If something is a lie, it's been rehearsed in one direction and it will fall apart.
The full article contains 1615 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
