Hello everybody,

I have a question about the use of the past perfect and simple past in " because clauses" .Are the two tenses interchangeable in the most of the "because clauses" ? For example I append a few clauses I have randomly picked from google :


"The board also said it made its decision because he was in a place where .. " (can i replace the because clause with the one with past perfect : "because he had been in place where.."  without a change in the meaning ? )

or vice versa , can i replace the past perfect from the below "because clause" with the simple past :

"Back in 2006 my partner called the police because I had broken the door of our apartment." ( would it be the same : " because I broke the door of our apartment" )

I have noticed (by googling it  ) that the use of the past perfect in "because clauses" is not so frequent. Am I right then that the simple past is a regular tense used in "because clauses" to situate the action in the clause in the past time and that the past perfect is used only if there is a need to emphasize the prior happening of the action in the "because clause" in reference to the action in the main clause ?


Thank you for your help