Blueprint To Protect Child Witnesses Still Not In Place

Children are still being subjected to harrowing courtroom ordeals because measures intended to protect young witnesses have failed, The Scotsman can reveal. An investigation has found a raft of recommendations to support children in court have not been introduced, five years after they were promised.

Meanwhile, a scathing report from children’s charities has criticised legislation – designed to protect child witnesses – for leaving too much to the discretion of judges and sheriffs.

The Scotsman has learned that many of the 44 recommendations made by a working group commissioned by the then lord advocate, Lord Rodger, have not been put in place.

Joyce Plotnikoff, a legal researcher, and her partner, Richard Woolfson, were commissioned by the lord advocate to look at ways of improving how child witnesses were dealt with by the legal system.

But The Scotsman has found that a memorandum by the Lord Justice General on good practice for child witnesses has not been updated since 1990, despite being accepted as a key recommendation. A senior legal source said: “All they’ve done is republish the old one in a new folder.”

Many other of the key planks of the study have yet to be introduced or are being implemented in an ad hoc fashion.

Ms Plotnikoff said that, in too many cases, the group’s conclusions had merely been written into policy documents and were not being followed in practice.

Contrary to the group’s recommendations, cases involving young witnesses are not always given priority. Furthermore, in-court identification of the accused by the child is still being sought, even where identification is not in dispute.

The group’s recommendation that statistics be published on the number of young witnesses in court and how often cases are rescheduled has also failed to materialise.

The judiciary was supposed to have specialist training on child witnesses, but it emerged yesterday that the courses on offer are not compulsory, allowing judges and sheriffs simply to opt out. They are a requirement for all High Court and Crown Court judges in England and Wales.

The advisory group’s recommendation that court visits should be universally available has also been overlooked. “Producing policy documents does not go far enough,” said Ms Plotnikoff. “We need to ensure reforms are translated into practice.

“It’s clear that the Executive have moved forward on many of the issues, but it is very disappointing that they won’t confirm exactly how many of the recommendations have been put in place.

“The Lord Advocate’s advisory group anticipated that the results wouldn’t be achieved unless the whole package of recommendations were put in place.”

Scotland’s legal system faced fierce criticism over its treatment of child witnesses following the collapse of a paedophile trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in July 2001, when a young witness broke down while giving evidence and was declared unfit to continue.

The case was a catalyst for change and prompted calls for reform of the way children are treated in court, as well as a promise by the Executive that the recommendations of the Lord Advocate’s working group on child witnesses would be acted upon.

The Scottish Executive yesterday refused to give details on exactly how many of the reforms had been introduced following the pledge in 2001.

A spokesman said: “Most of the recommendations of the Lord Advocate’s Working Group on Child Witness Support have now been implemented through legislation, guidance and training of practitioners. Those that remain to be implemented are being addressed by the appropriate organisations.”

In a further criticism of the way child witnesses are treated in courts, a report by the Justice for Children Reform Group, seen by The Scotsman, has highlighted serious failings in the Vulnerable Witnesses (Scotland) Act, which was introduced in April 2004 at a cost of £5 million. The group claims the act leaves too much to the discretion of judges and sheriffs.