That whole sad issue of John Campbell's faked interview last October with the so-called medals thief, "Robert", who was actually a disguised actor, is coming back to haunt TV3 badly. Now the police want Campbell, Carol Hirschfeld and others working on Campbell Live to tell them the criminal's name. TV3 is resisting. The police have made an application to the High Court to compel Campbell and his colleagues to reveal the identity of the man who made the confession.

That so-called interview, that piece of deceptive play-acting, continues to niggle at me. So much of it was not right. Things did not add up. What bothered many of us who have spent large sections of our lives in the question-asking business, was the nature of the questions Campbell asked. They did not seem to me to be the questions of a journalist.

Campbell is a very competent, trained journalist who knows how to ask current affairs questions and has been asking them for a long time. The questions that went to air that night were not current affairs questions. They were, instead, and I have always thought this, the questions of a lawyer trying to make a client look good.

The questions asked (see below) were not just super soft. They were, I believe, the questions that would be asked by a lawyer interviewing his client in such a way that the totality of the client's answers would become a plea in mitigation. Leave aside the criminal we saw was not actually the criminal himself, but the answers the so-called medals thief gave seemed designed to make himself seem a reasonable chap who was greatly relieved the medals were back in the right hands.

What I am saying is, it might be possible that Campbell and his colleagues never met or even got near the man himself. I think it is possible the man's lawyer asked those questions of the criminal himself, recorded the interview on tape and gave the tape to Campbell Live. I think it is possible Campbell Live transcribed that tape and using the lawyer's original questions and the criminal's answers, created a fake "interview".

After all, what lawyer would put his client, confessing to a crime that outraged the nation, the theft of our crown jewels, historic medals won through acts of immense bravery in the heat of battle, medals presented to and worn by the legendary men who earned them, in front of someone like John Campbell? What lawyer would do that before even an arrest and a trial? What lawyer would take that risk? Lawyers do not do this.

Meaning, I think it is possible Campbell cannot reveal the man's name because he does not know it and because he never met him. For Campbell to admit that he does not know the name would further strain his credibility. It is possible he and his team received such assurance from the man's persuasive lawyer that his client was indeed one of the medal thieves they felt they could go with the lawyer's taped interview. They would have tried hard to get the man himself to speak to Campbell, of course, but they may have settled late in the day for second best. Remember, Campbell told us during TV3 News they were desperately editing the thing right up to deadline.