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Home Office

Answer

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance is available to the police on appropriate interviewing methods for (a) prisoners who are witnesses in historical sex abuse cases and (b) vulnerable or intimidated witnesses. [197435] Ms Blears: Guidance for police on appropriate techniques for investigating allegations of historical child abuse is included in the Senior Investigating Officer's Handbook--the Investigation of Historical/ institutional Child Abuse produced by the Association of Chief Police Officers. This includes prisoners. This is currently being reviewed to ensure the guidance is kept up to date and includes lessons to be learnt from more recent cases. Guidance on interviewing vulnerable or intimidated witnesses is contained in "Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance for Vulnerable or Intimidated Witnesses, including Children", issued in January 2002. This guidance became operational in May 2002 when it superseded "Memorandum of Good Practice on Video Recorded Interviews with Child Witnesses for Criminal Proceedings". Victims in sexual offence proceedings are considered to be vulnerable. Other witnesses in these cases--but not the accused-- may also be treated as vulnerable.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

426 c2071W;426 c2077W; 197435

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Children Abuse Interviews Police Training Sexual offences Witnesses

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk