‘I am not beholden to anyone… I consider myself to be an officer of the court’: A comparison of the intermediary role in England and Wales and Northern Ireland

Abstract

Intermediaries were first introduced by the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (1999) to facilitate communication between individuals with communication needs and the criminal justice system. Yet, despite increased academic attention into this new criminal justice actor, the content of the role remains unclear. Findings from 31 interviews with intermediaries in England and Wales and Northern Ireland as well as judges in Northern Ireland indicate that two distinct systems of intermediaries have emerged between the jurisdictions. The picture is complicated by an inequality in intermediary provision between witnesses and defendants. In England and Wales, the statutory intermediary scheme covers only witnesses whereas the ‘unitary’ system in Northern Ireland covers both witnesses and defendants. Drawing on the data collected, this article highlights key themes which underpin differences in intermediary practice and suggests that lessons can be learned in how we conceptualise the role and its work.

Intermediaries in Chile: Facilitating the right of child victims and witnesses to participate and be heard in criminal trials

“…Nonetheless, the results accounted for certain difficulties perceived by the professionals, such as that they feel they need advanced competences and knowledge to approach these cases and that they need to be more aware of their needs during the testimonies. Intermediaries from England, Northern Ireland, Australia or New Zealand typically count on specialised professional backgrounds, such as speech and language therapy, psychology and social work (Cooper and Mattison, 2017; Howard et al, 2020c; Taggart, 2021). The system then tries to match the special needs of the victims with a professional that has the proper competences to address them.…”

“…Although the infrastructure and technical equipment conditions as well as the initial training have been reported as remarkedly satisfactory, a persistent inconvenience with the implementation of the intermediary system and of the Law 21.057 has been the high workload that this measure has entailed for the professionals, the high emotional load that these functions imply for their mental health, and the lack of support for a high proportion of intermediaries, mainly from the police forces. One of the advantages of the Northern Irish system over the English one, according to Taggart (2021), is the broad consensus of Northern Irish intermediaries about the support they receive from the Department of Justice as well as from their peers, and about the resources they receive and share. In comparison, there has been widespread dissatisfaction among English intermediaries with respect to the lack of emotional or training support they receive from their Ministry of Justice and their peers.…”

“…In addition, Henderson and Lamb (2018) found that although children were asked fewer suggestive and complex questions in trials because of increased awareness and education, they still received undesirable interventions from parties, and judges did not intervene enough in certain cases. Since Northern Ireland had the opportunity to learn from the experiences of England and Wales, it has reported fewer obstacles and more strengths as compared to the English system, including, for instance, that its system is mandatory for accused vulnerable people and that intermediaries feel very positive about the role's organisation, training opportunities, and the support received from the Department of Justice (Taggart, 2021). Intermediaries also hold a support group, whereas English intermediaries have not felt sufficient support or care from their institutions or peers.…”

Intermediaries and cross‐examination resilience in children: The development of a novel experimental methodology

“…The aim is to facilitate communication between the child and relevant professionals to ensure it is complete, coherent and accurate (Collins & Krahenbuhl, 2020;Cooper & Wurzel, 2014;Krahenbuhl, 2019). Several other international jurisdictions (e.g., Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, New South Wales, Australia) have adopted intermediary schemes, although details of the schemes vary (see Cooper & Mattison, 2017;Cooper & Wurzel, 2014;Taggart, 2021). Feedback on the RI scheme has been generally positive (Collins & Krahenbuhl, 2020;Ministry of Justice, 2020a;Plotnikoff & Woolfson, 2015), and mock juror studies suggest that the presence of an RI does not have a negative impact on perceptions of child witnesses (e.g., Krahenbuhl, 2019).…”