Interviewing Child Witnesses with Disabilities: A Survey of Police Officers in England and Wales
| Published date | 01 January 1999 |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Author | Michelle Aldridge,Joanne Wood |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9907200104 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
MICHELLE ALDRIDGE
JOANNE WOOD
Linguistics Department, University
of
Wales,
Bangor
INTERVIEWING CHILD WITNESSES
WITH DISABILITIES: ASURVEY OF
POLICE OFFICERS
IN ENGLAND AND WALES
Introduction
In this article, we report on selected findings from a survey of police
officers in England and Wales who interview child witnesses. The
survey was designed to elicit the officers' opinions on a variety of
aspects of the interviewing of child witnesses within the guidelines set
out in the Home Office Memorandum of Good Practice (1992). We
report on general findings from this survey elsewhere (Aldridge and
Wood, 1998 and unpublished). Our attention, here, is focused on one
specific aspect of our survey findings, namely, the interviewing of child
witnesses who have a disability. Priorto discussing
our
survey findings,
we will address some background issues in relation to current
provisions for child witnesses.
Provisions for Child Witnesses
Significant changes in the UK Criminal Justice system and similar
developments worldwide (see Goodman and Bottom, 1996 and Davies
and Wilson, 1997 for reviews) have attempted to improve provisions for
child witnesses so that evidentially valid accounts can be obtained with
the minimum distress. Current UK guidelines recommend that child
witnesses are initially interviewed by a specially trained police officer
and/or social worker. This interview most often takes place in a
designated, child-friendly interview suite and is video recorded. This
video recording may then be shown in court as the child's evidence-in-
chief in any subsequent legal proceedings but, at trial, the child must
present for cross-examination (though this can be via a television live-
link facility).
The initial video interview with a child witness is generally guided
by the recommendations laid down in the 1992 Memorandum
of
Good
Practice (henceforth the Memorandum). The Memorandum, for
example, suggests a phased approach to video interviewing whereby
there is an initial rapport phase (where the interviewer asks general
questions, eg, about the child's hobbies), a free narrative phase (where
the child is given an opportunity to give an account
of
events in her own
words and at her own pace), a questioning phase (where the interviewer
asks the child specific questions about alleged events), and a closure
January 1999 The Police Journal 33
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