Brayne & Carr: Law for Social Workers 10e
Chapter 15
Home Office, Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance for Vulnerable or Intimidated Witnesses including Children.
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/achieving-best-evidence - essential reading as it is the official guidance for all involved and is taken into account by courts.
Home Office, Provision of Therapy for Child Witnesses Prior to a Criminal Trial Practice Guidance www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/therapy-vlnrbl-child-witness.pdf. From the introduction:'The guidance makes it clear that the best interests of the child are paramount when decidingwhether, and in what form, therapeutic help is given. We hope that it will be helpful for allpractitioners, especially those in the criminal justice system, NHS, social services departmentsand voluntary child care organisations.'
B. Hamlyn, A. Phelps, J. Turtle, and G. Sattar, Are special measures working? Evidence from surveys of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses (Home Office Research, Development andStatistics Directorate, June 2004). Food for thought on how best to protect the vulnerablewitness, indicating special measures have assisted in enabling witnesses to give criminalevidence. www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/hors283.pdf.
L. Ellison, The adversarial process and the vulnerable witness (Oxford University Press,2002).
H. Westcott and J. Jones (eds), Perspectives on the Memorandum. Policy, Practice and Research in Investigative Interviewing (Arena, 1997) - provides a range of different views on the Memorandum of Good Practice and issues relating to interviewing children. Although theMemorandum has been replaced with Achieving Best Evidence, the book is primarily aboutinterviewing children and its relevance is not diminished.
Guidance on the experience of appearing as a witness in court is available at www.direct.gov.uk/en/CrimeJusticeAndTheLaw/DG_070444.


