Screen used in court to shield complainant

Press, 29 January 1988, Page 26

Screen used in court to shield complainant

PA Wellington For what was believed to be the first time in New Zealand, a screen has been used in a court to shield accuser from accused. During an indecent assault depositions hearing in Lower Hutt District Court a screen was placed between the complainant and the accused so they could not see each other. The idea to use a screen came from the Lower Hutt CIB. It was designed to assist young complainants when giving evidence, said Detective Inspector Martin Sears. In the past, some complainants had become upset while giving evidence of a personal nature, because they could see the accused in court, Mr Sears said. They were "reliving the trauma.” Judge Von Dadelszen granted a police application to use a screen, giving two reasons. First, he said, the defendant was entitled to be present but the law did not say he needed to be in sight of any person in the courtroom. Second, the defendant must have a fair hearing. “I need to weigh the prejudice to him in allowing the screen, against the interests of his children and the inevitable ordeal which they must go through today. “I do not believe that the accused’s rights are so restricted by my granting this application as to create the kind of prejudice which Mr Johnson (defence counsel) has urged upon me,” Judge Von Dadelszen said. The defendant’s daughter gave evidence that her father had indecently assaulted her and her younger sister in separate incidents between December, 1984, and September, 1985, while their mother worked. The complainant was not asked to formally identify the defendant. ■ Ah office partition At 1

this stage the use of a screen was experimental and would be re-evaluated at the end of the hearing, Mr Sears said. “But so far it is working very satisfactorily.” The prosecution could apply for a screen to be used, but it was granted at the judge’s discretion. Mr Sears said he hoped a judical precedent would be set and other judges would be willing to allow a screen in court. However the use of a screen drew criticism from a Wellington barrister. Mr John Billington said it was an unwise experiment. More research was needed before such methods were used in New Zealand courts, he said. “It is most unhelpful setting people up as guinea pigs in an area where there has been no research done.” Mr Billington attended a criminal law reform conference in London last year where methods of protecting witnesses from giving evidence in front of an accused were discussed. It was dangerous to experiment without research, especially as the present system was not proven to be failing, he said. The use of a screen could have a lot to commend it because it avoided the possible confrontational atmosphere between the witness and the accused, Mr Billington said. However, "shouldn’t you have to confront the person you are accusing?” He said there would be greater licence for a witness to fabricate if they could not see the defendant. The use of screens to hide an accused person from their accuser was part of an erosion of accused’s rights in sexual complaints, said a Wellington lawyer, Mr Bruce Davidson.

He said it was contrary to the firmly entrenched proposition that an accused person should be able to face their accuser. He said he knew that overseas evidence from complainants in sexual assault cases was sometimes recorded on video in the absence of the accused. This had not yet been done in the criminal jurisdiction in New Zealand but in one family court hearing of a Social Welfare complaint, the evidence of the child was video- recorded. Mr Davidson said that in New Zealand there were no laws governing the use of screens or videos in criminal cases but if it was intended they should be used more, then laws would probably be introduced. At the moment if an accused agreed to screens or videos being used it could be done, and if an accused objected it would be for the judge to decide, on standards of fairness, if they should be allowed, he said. The issue of sexual complainants facing an accused was a double edged sword, he said. On one hand complainants were given protection from the need to face the accused in court, but on the other side some people were calling for more face to face meetings for an accused person to apologise as part of the sentencing process. He said he saw the use of screens in sexual complaint cases, particularly complaints by children, as endangering an accused person’s rights. Allegations of sex offences were easily made and very difficult to deny, he said. Until very recent times juries were warned against finding an accused guilty on the uncorroborated evidence of a complainant in a sexual

assault case. The use of screens or videos provided a mechanism to continue a lie, an exaggeration or untruth in the knowledge that the accused was not there to see them, Mr Davidson said. It was a matter of human nature that people would say things behind a person’s back that they would not say to their face. Groups dealing with sexually abused children have welcomed the use of screens to protect child witnesses as a step to reduce victims’ trauma. The director of Parentline, Ms Maxine Hodgson, said the Judge’s decision was a precedent for future child abuse cases and would encourage more children to make complaints when they had been abused. Parentline is a national child abuse prevention organisation. “Many children feel they have to retract their complaints when they hear they will have to face in court the person who abused them,” Ms Hodgson said. A spokeswoman for the National Collective of Rape Crisis and Related Groups of Aotearoa, Ms Jax McLaren, said the issues of using screens and videos for sexual abuse eases would become more important this year. “This is a precedent for complainants’ rights.” A Wellington barrister, Mr Warwick Gendall, a member of the National Advisory Committee on Child Abuse, said use of screens to keep victims out of sight of the accused was a welcome but makeshift development. He said submissions from the committee to the Government last year had called for the use of twoway videos, allowing children to give evidence and be cross-examined outside the courtroom. ■ ,l