Questioning child complainants of sexual abuse: Analysis of criminal court transcripts in New Zealand

Abstract

Abstract This article contributes to the debate concerning how best to question child complainants about sexual abuse in a way that is in the best interests of the child and the fact‐finder. Although this research was conducted in New Zealand, the issues raised are relevant to adversarial criminal justice systems elsewhere. Four analyses were conducted on 26 transcripts of the evidence‐in‐chief and cross‐examination of child complainants of sexual abuse, and 12 transcripts of evidential interviews of the younger of these complainants. In the first analysis, a coding system was developed to categorise questions into different types of open and closed questions. In the second analysis, the authors investigated the complexity of the sentence structure used in the questions asked. Both analyses were conducted on the questions asked by evidential interviewers, prosecutors and defence lawyers. The third analysis focused on the sequence and content of questions asked in cross‐examination. Finally, the reason for interventions by prosecutors and judges were noted and discussed with particular reference to protection of child complainants. The data indicate that defence lawyers are asking some questions that children have difficulty understanding and that no‐one is intervening to protect the child from inappropriate questioning. The implications of this are outlined and recommendations made for future action.