Interviewing child witnesses within memorandum guidelines

Since 1991, the evidence-in-chief of child witnesses in the United Kingdom (UK) criminal proceedings can be an initial video-recorded interview between a police officer/social worker & the child witness. This paper reports on the results of a survey of the attitudes & opinions of police officers who conduct video interviews with child witnesses in 18 police forces in England & Wales. Notably, officers' views were sought on the conduct of interviews. This builds on previous surveys which have focused on general views of videotaping children's evidence (for example, Davies and others 1995) & training issues (for example, Davies, Marshall & Robertson, 1998). Our findings support previous reports in that police officers view current provisions for child witnesses as a step in the right direction (Davies & others, 1995) but there are some reported limitations for example, gaps in training (Davies, Marshall & Robertson, 1998). In addition, we highlight the difficulties that can arise in relation to language use & some differences of opinion amongst officers (for example, with respect to the use of props in interviewing). 1 Appendix, 14 References. [Copyright 2000 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.]