 The first point to be made is simply to reiterate that some of these scenarios – such as police officers beating up kidnappers and other offenders to rescue children – are not only realistic, they are real; they have actually happened. What of the ticking bomb scenario in particular? As stated above, it is by no means self-evident that this kind of scenario is entirely fanciful. Here it can be conceded that there is no guarantee that torture would succeed in saving the lives of (to revert to our specific ticking bomb scenario) thousands of Londoners. This is because the person tortured might not talk or he might talk too late or he might provide false or misleading information. However, it should be noted that the police know that the offender has committed the offence and is in a position to provide the needed information, i.e. the police know that the offender is guilty. Moreover, the information being sought is checkable; if the terrorist gives the correct location of the bomb then the police will find it – if he does not, then they will not find it. Further, the police have no alternative methods by which to avoid the death of the innocent. Given what is at stake and given the fact that the police know the offenders are guilty, the police are, it seems, justified in the use of torture, notwithstanding a degree of uncertainty in relation to the likelihood of success. (See Thiessen (2010) for arguments that so-called enhanced interrogation techniques do in fact work.)