Abstracts Law

Sexual abuse investigation and criminal court processes: doing justice to the child?

by Emma Davies

This thesis has contributed to the international literature on child sexual abuse investigation and criminal justice processes by conducting a programme evaluation of these processes in Auckland, New Zealand. In the first part of the study, 51 child complainants and 124 primary carers were interviewed about their perceptions of social work investigation, evidential interviewing, access to counselling services, police investigation, medical examinations and, for some, criminal court proceedings. Although participants were predominantly satisfied with early interactions with professionals, both children and primary carers highlighted the need for better interagency collaboration, reduced time delays throughout the process, earlier access to support services, more information and increased involvement in decision making. With specific reference to criminal court, participants indicated a need for better pre-court education and debriefing. The second part of this research involved analyses of criminal court transcripts on the ways that children are questioned by evidential interviewers and lawyers in court. The transcript analyses showed that some cross-examination strategies are reliant on prejudicial stereotypes of children and false assumptions about the dynamics of sexual abuse. In combination, the interviews and transcript analyses, indicate that Judges could usefully ensure that children are asked questions in terms they understand. The thesis revealed deficiencies within agency practices and, to a lesser extent, agency policies which impact negatively on children and their families during the sexual abuse investigation and criminal justice processes. It was shown that in practice these processes do not fully comply with Article 3(1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in that the best interests of the child are not always 'of primary consideration'. Recommendations to address some of these deficiencies were proposed.