The role of the witness

What is a witness?

  • Eyewitness: Someone who saw an event happen

  • Witness: Have knowledge of something form knowledge or experience

  • Members of public: Eyewitness, Victims

  • Professionals: Professional based witness, Expert witness

Members of the public

  • Anyone could be a witness

  • Some are considered vulnerable and/or intimidated

    • Vulnerable:

      • Any child under 18

      • Mental disorder

      • Learning impairment

      • Physical impairment

    • Intimidated

      • Quality of evidence is likely to be diminished by fear/distress

      • Can be broad by exampled include: Sexual offences, weapon involved crimes, Racially motivated crimes, repeat, elderly

Witnesses in court

  • The number/type of witness called to give evidence in a trial differs depending on the case, as does the time spent in the witness box

  • Factors affecting the time spent, number and type of witness in court:

    • Evidence contested or not? (Sec.9 criminal justice act 1967)

    • Number of defendants

    • Vilume vs serious/major crime

    • What the witness says in court

Giving evidence

  • Examination and cross-contamination

  • Range of options for giving evidence

    • In open court

    • In court, but behind a screen

    • Via video link

    • Show pre-recorded interview

Section 28 — Logistical challenges

  • Challenge of getting case organised quickly

  • Continuity of counsel

  • Centralised booking system issues

  • Technical issues

Special measures — Effective in supporting witnesses but…

  • Gaps in provisions:

    • Special measures not be assessed for early enough

    • Information about vulnerable/ intimidated status not being shared

    • Special measures not being available or provided for on the day

Professional witness

  • Someone who is involved in the case due to their occupation

  • Only stating facts, not providing opinions

Expert witness

  • Someone who is involved in the case due to their occupation

  • Need to state opinions to interpret the facts for the jury to understand

The fallibility of memory and how this impacts on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

  • Our memory is not 100% accurate

Causes of faulty eyewitness testimony

  • Eyewitness identification is a joint product of:

    • Inherent human processes

    • Methods used to obtain information from eyewitnesses

Issues affecting human memory

  • How long were you able to observe them?

  • How far away from them were you?

  • How clearly could you see them?

  • Was the person familiar?

  • Was there anything that made you notice them?

  • How much time has passed since you saw them?

Effectiveness of human memory

Amount of time under observation

Distance from the eyewitness to the person/incident

Visibility — including time of day, street lighting etc

Obstructions — was there anything obstructing the view?

Known or seen before — did the witness knoe, or had they seen the suspect before?

Any reason to remember — was there something specific that made it more memorable

Time lapse — how long since the witness last saw the suspect

Errors or material discrepancies

Memory storage and retrieval

The acquisition of information

  • What information comes into memory?

  • What information is attended to?

The retention of information

  • What is learned or encoded?

  • At what depth is it encoded?

  • How well is it encoded?

The retrieval of previously learned information

  • Can we get it back?

  • Is it the same as when we stored it?

The retention of information

  • Our memory is less accurate over time

    • Particularly relevant for historical cases

How information is retrieved

Interviewing/Questioning methodologies:

  • Different types of questions produce different types of answers

    • Leading questions have a tendency to produce erroneous info (Loftus & Palmer, 1974)

      • “Did you see the…? / Did you see a…?”

      • All interviewees are susceptible to suggestion

      • Especially as police officers may be seen as authoritative figure who is an expert in criminal investigations

  • Police officers are trained in interviewing techniques that focus on: open questions and an information gathering approach


PART 2 OF LECTURE — Expert witness

Introduction

  • Associate Professor, School of Criminology

  • Hate and Extremism – religiously motivated, far-right/extreme right wing, policies/ legislation

  • Modules: Terrorism & Understanding Extremism (UG); Responding to Terrorism (PG)

  • Submitted oral and written evidence to various parliamentary committees, select committees and parliamentary groups (e.g. House of Lords Select Committee on Religious Offences, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia, All Party Parliamentary Group on Universities, Home Affairs Select Committee on Hate Crimes, and the Commission on Islam, Participation and Public Life)

  • Independent member of West Midlands Counter Terrorism Advisory Group & formerly, Cross-Government Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hate

  • Consulted by various individual politicians

What is an expert witness?

Crown Prosecution service

  • An ‘expert witness’ is someone able “to furnish the court with information which is likely to be outside the experience and the knowledge of a judge or jury”

  • “…to help the court to achieve the overriding objective by giving opinion which is objective and unbiased, in relation to matters within their expertise”

  • Expert evidence will be of assistance to the court

    • The expert has relevant expertise

    • The expert is impartial

    • The expert's evidence is reliable

Pre-trial

Terms of Reference

  • Contract

  • Evidence – case specific materials/resources (primarily digital)

  • Official Secrets Act


Letter of Instruction

  • Remit of expertise

  • Scope and Standard of report (inc. what not to include)

  • Timeframe for delivery

The cases

  • Violence

  • Nation socialism

  • Symbology

  • Racial/Cultural Nationalism (e.g. Racism, Antisemitism, Islamophobia etc)

  • History of the Far-Right and/or Extreme Right-Wing

  • Relevance to Terrorism Inspired by the Extreme Right-Wing

  • Encouragement and/or Glorification of Terrorism

Trial

The witness stand

  • Retention of information

  • Effectiveness of Human Memory

  • Questions - prosecution

  • Questions - defence