Child Witness in UK Law

Like adults some children will provide truthful and accurate testimony, and some will not. However children are not miniature adults, but children, and to be treated and judged for what they are, not what they will, in years ahead, grow to be. In trial by jury, his or her credibility is to be assessed by the jury, taking into account every specific personal characteristic which may bear on the issue of credibility, along with the rest of the available evidence.

At the same time the right of the defendant to a fair trial must be undiminished. When the issue is whether the child is lying or mistaken in claiming that the defendant behaved indecently towards him or her, it should not be over-problematic for the advocate to formulate short, simple questions which put the essential elements of the defendant's case to the witness, and fully to ventilate before the jury the areas of evidence which bear on the child's credibility.

Both Powell and Malicki underlined the importance to the trial and investigative process of keeping any delay in a case involving a child complainant to an irreducible minimum.

Again the court is required to strike a balance, on this occasion between the right of the defendant to have a hearing in accordance with the norm and the need to provide protection in accordance with the legislative purpose, in the interests not only of the child witness but also of justice, to ensure that the witness will be able to give evidence and give evidence unaffected by the stress of appearing in court itself.

In a child case the judge develops a face-to-face, bench-to-witness-box, acquaintanceship with each of the candidates for the care of the child. But the corollary is the difficulty of mounting a successful appeal against a judge's decision about the future arrangements for a child.

It seems to us to be a near impossible task to undertake an effective cross-examination in those circumstances when the cross-examination must depend for its effectiveness on probing what actually happened in the course of the incident itself and immediately after it, not just going over what the complainant said in her interview. These problems go beyond the normal difficulties of recollection with an adult witness or an older child.

What does, however, emerge clearly from the opinions are four propositions. First, neither article has as such precedence over the other. Secondly, where the values under the two articles are in conflict, an intense focus on the comparative importance of the specific rights being claimed in the individual case is necessary. Thirdly, the justifications for interfering with or restricting each right must be taken into account. For convenience I will call this the ultimate balancing test.