Legal decision making about (child) sexual assault complaints: the importance of the information-gathering process

Abstract

For over a century, changes have been implemented in the way the evidence of adult and child sexual assault complainants is received during the common law adversarial trial process. Could the fact that reforms have rarely affected the way information is gathered at the initial stages of investigation be a reason why legal systems still struggle with prosecuting sexual offences, but particularly those against children? An abundance of research demonstrates how question types influence the accuracy and detail of reported information. Few studies, however, have focused on the (downstream) impact on legal decisions. This paper begins with a brief overview of reforms to the information-gathering process across the 20th century that indicate how fraught the issue of information-gathering has been; it then reviews contemporary information-gathering strategies and proposes reforms to better align contemporary procedures with sound evidence-based practice. We argue that decision-makers, including police, lawyers, clinical and forensic practitioners, and judiciary need to better understand the science to bring about overdue change.