Purpose. To identify the ways in which witnesses with and without intellectual disabilities are examined in court. Specifically to identify what questions are asked and what influence they have. Methods. Court transcripts were obtained for 16 rape, sexual assault or assault trials involving witnesses with intellectual disabilities and 16 matched cases involving witnesses from the general population. The cases were assessed systematically concerning the questioning strategies of lawyers and the influence of those strategies on witness responses. Results. Questioning of witnesses with intellectual disabilities was almost identical to that of witnesses from the general population indicating that lawyers are not altering their questioning behaviour for witnesses with intellectual disabilities, either positively or negatively. Cross‐examination is particularly poor for eliciting accurate memory reports, especially for witnesses with intellectual disabilities. The accounts of witnesses with intellectual disabilities are shorter and more likely to agree with a leading question than are accounts from the general population. Conclusion. The way in which witnesses are examined does little to ensure that their memories are as accurate as possible. People with intellectual disabilities should be questioned in such a way that their ability to give accurate evidence in court is maximized.

Summary People with learning disabilities (LDs) are likely to be at greater risk of having crimes committed against them, and testimony from witnesses with LDs is likely to be crucial when many of these crimes are prosecuted. The present authors analysed the transcripts of 16 court cases involving witnesses with LDs and 16 matched court cases involving witnesses without LDs. On the basis of this information and previous research, they discuss three issues: (1) the strengths and vulnerabilities of people with LDs as witnesses in court; (2) the kinds of questioning used by lawyers in courtrooms which can cause problems for witnesses with LDs; and (3) guidance for practitioners concerning alerting the judge to their role in preventing constraining and coercive lawyer questioning in court. The authors conclude that many people with LDs can be competent witnesses in court, but that hostile lawyers in particular use constraining and coercive questioning strategies which have a particularly negative impact on the testimony of witnesses with LDs. Judges should be informed of appropriate and inappropriate lawyer questioning strategies in advance of trials to enable them to effectively manage the questioning of lawyers in the courtroom.

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Muon-spin rotation (SR͒ and torque magnetometry have been used to probe the anisotropy of an untwinned single crystal of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7Ϫ␦. The absence of twin planes allows the ratios of all three principal components of the superconducting effective mass tensor to be determined. The values for the in-plane anisotropy are in good agreement with values obtained by other techniques. The out-of-plane anisotropies as measured by SR are also found to be in good agreement with other microscopic measurements, but somewhat lower than those resulting from torque measurements on this and other crystals.

Measurements of magnetically induced velocity changes in polycrystalline nickel rods are discussed. Shear and compressional ultrasonic propagation modes are used throughout the frequency range of 1–10 megacycles. The polycrystalline measurements are compared to recently published single nickel crystal values. The ΔE effect is found to decrease with increasing frequency throughout the megacycle region, showing general agreement with low frequency measurements.