The genesis of a witness statement

Abstract

This article steps back from the plethora of learned articles on simulated interviews with witnesses, the success of interview techniques and cognitive loads on interviewees and interviewers; it reports a detailed examination of the way witness statements are taken, from the first verbal account given by a witness to the final written statement penned by their interviewer. The article examines a statement-taking session and the resulting statement. It presents examples to illustrate which aspects of the witnessÂ’s account are changed during the statement-taking session and how. That is, in what ways, and through what processes does the original version provided by the witness change through the subsequent renderings during the statement-taking session and in the final statement text? There are several reasons for doing this. This enables us to understand: firstly, a little more about what a witness statement is; secondly, how itness statements become what they are; and thirdly, in which ways witness statements might not be what they at first appear to be.

Want a Better Criminal Justice Response to Rape? Improve Police Interviews With Complainants and Suspects

“…Instead, in many countries the norm is still to record the interview using the traditional method where the interviewer prepares a written statement that is later endorsed by the complainant or suspect as a record of the interview (Heaton-Armstrong & Wolchover, 1992). Attorneys (e.g., Heaton-Armstrong & Wolchover, 1992), linguists (e.g., Rock, 2001), psychologists, and police officers (e.g., Milne & Shaw, 1999;Shepherd, 1999;Westera, Kebbell, & Milne, 2011) have all expressed their concerns about this written statement process.…”

“…Confirmation bias means that the interviewer is more likely to remember information that supports their preconceptions of what happened and disregard information that does not (Nickerson, 1998). For example, Rock (2001) found that when the audio recording of an interview was compared with the written statement resulting from it, contradictory information and the degree of the witness's uncertainty about central facts were often missing.…”

Interviewing rape complainants: Police officers' perceptions of interview format and quality of evidence

“…An incomplete and often inaccurate record of the interview has been shown to result from officers undertaking the cognitively demanding task of preparing a written statement (Kohnken, 1995;Kohnken, Thurer, & Zoberier, 1994;Lamb, Orbach, Sternberg, Hershkowitz, & Horowitz, 2000). Some barristers, psychologists and linguists have criticised the police and the justice system for their over-reliance on statements that they argue are treated as a verbatim representation of a witness's account (Heaton-Armstrong & Wolchover, 1992;Milne & Shaw, 1999;Rock, 2001). Video recording interviews could alleviate some of these problems and enhance the completeness and accuracy of information from rape complainants.…”

An analysis of critical ‘voices’ and ‘styles’ in transpreters’ translations of complainants’ narratives

“…In the extracts, the transpreter is identified as 'T' , and the complainant as 'C' . Table 1 contains symbols used in the transcripts, and the conventions which are based on the outline of Eades (2010), Heydon (2004) and Rock (2001).…”