Legal, criminological and forensic

The real Boon

Julian Boon’s work with the police has been the subject of a Channel 4 series. Jon Sutton met him to discuss his approach to offender profiling.

18 June 2003

How accurately do you think you and your profiling techniques were portrayed in The Real Cracker – was that ‘The Real Boon’?

The ‘Boon personality’ was deliberately de-emphasised, mostly because of personal safety, and a desire to protect my family from publicity. But in the series we’re filming now they will be focusing a bit more on my lifestyle – though not pictures of us at home eating breakfast! As for the profiling techniques, what you saw was a bit like watching edited highlights of a Formula 1 race – you get the bits which are going to be of interest. They’re going to want to put in what people on the ground floor are thinking, but it may not be reflective of what the senior officer and the profiler are thinking.

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