Past Tenses in the passive.

 Simple Past Passive

Subject + was/were + verb in past participle
Examples:
The phone was answered by a detective
We were robbed last night

 Past Continuous Passive

Subject + was/were + being + verb in past participle
Examples:
The crime was being investigated

 Past Perfect Passive

Subject + had been + verb in past participle
Examples:
Fingerprints had been left on the phone.

Use
The uses are the same in the passive as in the active.

 The bridge was built in 1976 (finished action in the past)

 The bomb was being defused when it exploded (interrupted past activity)
 The package didn’t arrive because it had been sent to my old address. (one action before
another action in the past)

When (and when not) to use the passive voice

 Reports of crimes or incidents with unknown perpetrators

Example: My car was stolen yesterday.

 Scientific contexts
Example: The rat was placed into a T-shaped maze.

 When you want to emphasize an action itself and the doer of the action is irrelevant or
distracting:
Example: Montevideo City Torque was defeated by Barcelona Sporting Club.
 The difference between active and passive voice

While tense is all about time references, voice describes whether the grammatical subject
of a clause performs or receives the action of the verb. Here’s the formula for the active
voice
Subject+ verb (performed by the subject) + optional object

 Chester kicked the ball.

 Teacher Jorge was teaching English.
 We had seen the match.

In a passive voice construction, the grammatical subject of the clause receives the action of the
verb. So, the ball from the above sentence, which is receiving the action, becomes the subject.

 The ball was kicked by Chester.

 English was being taught by Teacher Jorge.
 The match had been seen by us.

That last little bit—“by Chester”, “by Teacher Jorge” and “by us”—is a prepositional phrase that
tells you who the performer of the action is. But even though Chester, teacher Jorge and we are
the ones doing the action, they’re no longer the grammatical subject.

A passive voice construction can even drop him from the sentence entirely:

 The ball was kicked.

 English was beingh tauight.
 The match had been seen.