Child witnesses ‘not dangerous’

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 4

Child witnesses ‘not dangerous’

Dogs have more rights than children in some criminal cases, the conference heard yesterday. Mr Warwick Gendall, a Wellington barrister, said expert witnesses gave evidence in courts about the actions of police dogs but experts were not allowed to interpret the evidence of children in abuse trials. He rejected the commonly held view that children were dangerous witnesses who could not tell

fact from fantasy. If questioned properly soon after an event, children could provide accurate testimony, he said. Questioning by parents, doctors, police and lawyers in formal court settings added to the stress and prolonged the abuse suffered by the child. Mr Gendall said the first interview of a child in an abuse case should be done by a trained interpreter, and it should be recorded on video for

use as evidence in court. This would protect the child from a traumatic trial-by-battle; the child’s evidence would be more reliable, and it would encourage a guilty perpetrator to plead guilty. If the accused still insisted on his innocence, and the child had to give evidence, Mr Gendall advocated the use of an instantaneous video link so that the child did not have to "appear” in court.

Mr Gendall said experts should be able to interpret a child’s evidence to the courts because children could not fully articulate their thoughts. The interpreters should be appointed by the courts. He described as archaic the view that the accused and accuser must confront each other in court. “It does not make a child more able to tell the truth, but often makes the child too frightened to say, anything at all.”