In Their Own Words

This report describes the experiences of 50 young witnesses who gave evidence in 15 of the 42 criminal justice areas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The witnesses responded through prompt cards which were captioned and open ended. They were asked to respond to leading questions such as, "when I was waiting to go to court I felt..."; :When I was a witness, I was able to choose..."; "After court I felt..."

Parts of the report indicate that young witnesses have not had their rights fairly met. The authors refer to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990) which states "that children have the right to participate in decision-making processes that are relevant to their lives and to influence decisions taken in their regard. It is a challenge for courts to take account of children’s views about how to give evidence (Wade, 2002)." The report goes on to say, "It is therefore ironic that the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, the first legislation requiring courts to take account of witness views about how to give evidence, has resulted in restricting the options available to young witnesses."

The authors refer to The July 2003 Report of Inter-Agency Working Group on Witnesses which "concluded that young witnesses do not have access to a ‘coherent support system’ nation-wide. Nor is there an agreed mechanism to
identify and flag up young witness cases." The report goes on to refer to the Witness Service which in 2003 and 2004 "identified 18,466 people whom it considered entitled to special measures but who were not referred to the service as vulnerable or intimidated. Victim Support considers it likely that the majority of these were young witnesses."

The authors point out that fourteen of the 50 young witnesses in this study did not have contact with a supporter before the trial date. Further "the study identified 17 young witnesses whose vulnerabilities had apparently not been picked up and brought to the attention of the courts at any stage in the proceedings. Four44 were strongly discouraged from receiving pretrial therapy, despite policy to the contrary."

The authors make reference to "Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings" which suggests that the witness's ability to give best evidence will occur if he or she is less anxious and has emotional support from supporters. Further, they will demonstrate "greater accuracy" in their testimony.

The report is broken down into sections which, by bullet point, outline statistics and data on the compiled research. The sections include:

• Witness profile
• Waiting to go to trial
• Special measures and witness choice
• Delay on the Day of Trial
• Arrangements and physical facilities
• Pre-trial preparation
• Refreshing the witness’s memory
• Waiting on the day of the trial
• Meeting the advocates and the judiciary
• The TV link
• The presence of a supporter
• Answering questions
• Interventions by the judiciary
• After Court was over
• Pre-trial therapy
• 'What I would like to say…’

Click here for the 14-page Executive Summary in PDF format.

Please contact publications@nspcc.org.uk for the full report in its entirety [£16.50] from the publisher.