CIT Testing in Brighton
How the service runs locally.
We provide Concealed Information Tests in Brighton and Hove and along the Sussex coast. The south coast is a long journey from our base in Cheshire, so Brighton appointments are planned in advance. The examiner comes to the person being tested, at home or in a private room arranged in the city.
The CIT measures whether one specific detail is recognised by a person's brain, using an EEG cap and a short task on a screen. It does not rely on stress and involves no accusing questions. This page covers the Brighton service, and the CIT testing guide sets out the method.
Areas We Cover
Coverage takes in the city of Brighton and Hove, the coast from Worthing to Eastbourne, and inland to Lewes, Haywards Heath and Crawley.
- Brighton city centre
- Hove
- Kemptown
- Hanover
- Preston Park
- Patcham
- Portslade
- Rottingdean
- Saltdean
- Shoreham-by-Sea
We also travel to Worthing, Lewes, Eastbourne, Crawley and Haywards Heath. If your address is not listed, ask: the examiner comes to you, so the list is a guide and not a boundary.
Where the Test Takes Place
At home, or in a private room arranged near you.
Much of the housing in central Brighton and Hove is flats and converted houses with shared entrances and thin walls. A home visit works where one room can be kept quiet and private for about ninety minutes, with a table, a chair and a socket. Where it cannot, a private meeting room is the sensible choice, and we arrange it.
Parking in the central zones is restricted, so if the test is at home, tell us in advance where a visitor can park or whether a permit is needed. It avoids a late start, and a rushed start makes for a poorer recording.
What You Need Before Booking
The requirement is the same everywhere, and it is the one most cases fail.
A CIT needs at least one specific detail that the person would know only if they were involved, and that they have not been told, shown or asked about. A name, a place, an object or an amount can all work. A general suspicion cannot, because there is nothing in it to recognise. Two or three separate details make a stronger test than one.
The person to be tested must agree and gives written consent on the day. The full requirements, with a checklist, are on the who qualifies for a CIT test page. If no detail is known, read about the searching CIT and its limits before going further.
A Local Example of a Word List
Illustrative only. Real lists are written for each case.
Suppose the detail being tested is a town, and the true answer is Lewes. The person would see that item mixed in with five alternatives, Seaford, Hailsham, Uckfield, Steyning and Arundel, and would be asked to press a different key whenever Rye appeared. Each item is shown around thirty times in shuffled order.
These are Sussex towns that an uninvolved person would treat alike. Anywhere connected with the person's work, family or regular journeys is left off, and the names are kept to a similar length.
The step-by-step account of what happens next, from recording to result, is on the how CIT testing works page.
What the Test Can and Cannot Tell You
The same limits apply in Brighton as anywhere else.
A CIT can show that a detail is recognised, or that there is no sign of recognition in a recording that passed its quality check. It cannot test a bare accusation, it cannot tell innocent knowledge from guilty knowledge, and it does not prove what a person did. People can also be taught techniques that weaken the test; research published in 2004 showed this for the protocol we use.
Published laboratory studies of P300-based CITs commonly report detection of 80 to 95 per cent of people who hold the tested information. Those are laboratory figures and are not results from our own testing, and field validation is limited. If you are weighing this against a conventional lie detector, the CIT test vs polygraph comparison sets out the differences, and relationship cases are covered on the page about CIT testing for a suspected cheating partner.
The Legal Position in Brighton
What the law does and does not say.
Brighton is within England and Wales for legal purposes. The polygraph has a statutory role there in supervising certain offenders on licence, with section 30 of the Offender Management Act 2007 keeping the session results out of criminal proceedings against the person tested. The CIT stands outside any such scheme. It is a private, voluntary test, and we make no claim that results are admissible in any court or tribunal.
Booking a CIT Test in Brighton
What happens after you get in touch.
You can book online or ask a question first. We will ask what happened, what the person to be tested has and has not been told, and who else knows. If a sound test can be built, we draft the word lists with you and then agree a date and place in Brighton. If it cannot, we will say so before any appointment is made.