No abstract

The implications of these findings are relevant in all contexts where an adult questions a child. It has been demonstrated that interviewing techniques can affect responses from children and that it is therefore imperative that interviewers are aware of, understand and control their influence in order to elicit complete, accurate and reliable information from the child.

Purpose. In police interviews children may be asked the same question many times. We investigated how the number of repetitions and the interval between those repetitions affected the accuracy and consistency of children's responses.Methods. 156 children aged 4-9 years watched a staged event and were interviewed individually 1 week later. Children were asked eight open-ended questions, which were each repeated a further four times (making a total of forty questions). Half these openended questions could be answered from information in the event, and half were unanswerable (so children should have said 'don't know' in response to these questions). The questions were repeated in gist form. The interval between an initial question and its repetitions was varied by use of other questions and twenty nonrepeated filler questions. The intervals between repetitions were immediate repetition, repetition after a delay of three intervening questions, after a delay of six intervening questions, and after ten or more intervening questions.

Following the Government's commitment to improve protection for child witnesses in the Criminal Justice Act 1991, interviewing protocols have been developed to provide guidance on effective interviewing. Additionally, the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 intermediary special measure was provided in order to facilitate communication between child witnesses and ‘interviewers’ during the entire legal process. This article presents findings from a study that aimed to establish whether, over a decade later, there is accordance between intermediaries and lawyers about perceptions of appropriate communication in the context of investigative interviews and cross‐examination of children. Participants (19 intermediaries and 12 lawyers) examined transcripts of a mock investigative interview and cross‐examination of a child and noted which, if any, questions or phrases they perceived to be inappropriate, to state what was inappropriate and to suggest how these could be amended. Qualitative analysis showed that both groups demonstrated awareness of the emotional and developmental needs of the child but there was a lack of understanding of some aspects of the interviewing guidance, particularly in respect to the definition of leading questions, the use of recommended question formats and procedural aspects. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Following the implementation of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 for England and Wales, Registered Intermediaries have been available to assist child witness communication in legal proceedings since 2004. Registered Intermediaries are given training to fulfil this role. However, their assessments and practices are conducted independently. This study examined Registered Intermediaries’ perceptions and experiences of this independent practice, and the impact this had on the quality of the legal process in terms of evidential quality, child witness experiences and engagement. Seventeen experienced and currently active Registered Intermediaries with a range of communication specialisms took part in semi-structured interviews, which were analysed thematically. Six main themes emerged from the data: assessment constraints and requirements, essential elements of the assessment process, why the assessment process is effective, ensuring recommendations are followed through, pressures and barriers, and practice development. The Registered Intermediaries stressed the need for further training for themselves as well as for legal professionals, and emphasised the benefits of working as a team throughout the assessment and legal process.