Cross-examination of Vulnerable Witnesses

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ann Coffey]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. She is quite right. What we want is credible evidence, not evidence extracted by bullying.

The recent spate of high-profile sexual exploitation trials have provided stark examples. One young victim giving evidence in the Telford sex gang trials was repeatedly accused of lying and being naughty, and one barrister even demanded to know whether she repented her sins. Overall, she spent 12 days being cross-examined by a series of defence lawyers. As it stands, judges have no real power to limit the duration of questioning or the number of lawyers who can cross-examine a highly vulnerable witness in court. Practice directions encourage judges to set limits, but despite this judicial practice remains very uneven. That is why the measures in section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 are so important. This section provides for the cross-examination of vulnerable witnesses to be filmed at a pre-trial hearing and played to the jury at trial.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This is a vital issue, and I am surprised not to see more Members in the Chamber to support the hon. Lady. There is a great need for young children involved in such cases to have parents or family members close by and to be screened off, so that the investigations and the questioning can be done from a distance. Does the hon. Lady agree—perhaps the Minister can touch on this in his reply—that that is something we should be considering? Helping those children to give their evidence clearly and honestly, with the support of their families, has to be the way forward.

[Ann Coffey]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We need to look at all the protective measures that we can employ to support vulnerable witnesses, particularly children, to give their best evidence in court. I entirely support that.

The witness need not attend the trial in person, thus avoiding the many pitfalls to pursuing justice that vulnerable witnesses currently face. It must be noted that pre-recorded evidence in the form of a film of a police interview can already be used in lieu of live examination-in-chief for vulnerable witnesses. There is no reason why that should not be extended to cross-examination, when we know that that is the most distressing part of the trial process.

This has all been recognised for decades. In 1989, the committee chaired by Judge Pigot QC recommended that provision be made for vulnerable witnesses to undergo pre-recorded cross-examination ahead of trial. It took 10 years for that to be written into law in the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, and still, 17 years on from that moment, the relevant section remains unimplemented. That is despite the fact that victim support services, children’s charities and senior members of the judiciary have repeatedly emphasised the necessity and expedience of a roll-out.

The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, has been a tireless advocate for the implementation of section 28. Last Thursday he called, once again, in the other place for us to bring our court system up to date. He has said before that when section 28 is finally implemented, we will all be

“astounded about what all the fuss was about.”

I am already astounded that it is taking so long.

Of course, a vital step forward was made in April 2014, when pilot schemes were introduced in the Crown courts of Leeds, Liverpool and Kingston-upon-Thames. That was almost universally welcomed, but we are now well beyond the six months that those pilots were intended to last, and the evaluation report has not yet been made public. In “Our Commitment to Victims”, which was published in September 2014, the Government promised the completion of a national roll-out by March 2017, subject to the evaluation report. The clock has been ticking for well over 18 months, and it is unacceptable that vulnerable witnesses across the country should be made to endure further delay.

Since the formal evaluation period ended in October 2014, pre-recorded evidence has continued to be used in the pilot areas, and that is clearly a mark of the pilot’s success. One judge involved in the pilots in Kingston-upon-Thames wrote to me of the marked difference made by the installation of improved IT facilities for playing the evidence to juries. That occurred only after the pilot period ended. I hope that the evaluation report, when it is published, takes full account of these developments.