CHILD VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT MEMORANDUM BY SIR BASIL HENRIQUES, C.B.E., J.P. This Memorandum is being sent by Sir Basil to several organisations asking for comments and suggestions. The Council of the N.A.M.H. will be considering it shortly. It may be remembered that in the evidence given by the Association to the Ingleby Committee (in April 1958), recommendations very much on those proposed in the Memorandum were included and reference was made to the new procedure in cases of sexual offences against children adopted in Israel.?Ed.

Your Council is requested to urge the Home Secretary to introduce an immediate change of the procedure of giving evidence before a jury at Quarter Sessions by little girls who are said to have been sexually assaulted. Parents are very reluctant to prosecute in such cases knowing the fearful ordeal their child may have to suffer. The following case illustrates what may happen. On February 26th, a child of nine rushed home to tell her mother that she had been sexually assaulted. In order to protect other children, the parents decided to prosecute. The child gave evidence on oath in the Magistrates' Court on April 7th, when the defendant elected to be tried by jury. The next Quarter Sessions began on April 25th. The child was told to be in readiness every day between then and June 1st, when the case was heard. She is an intelligent child, but was by now very tense and nervous. She had to stand in the witness box before a jury in a public court, and in front of an enthroned Chairman who was wearing a wig, and in the presence of Counsel, also wearing wigs. After answering several questions, including which Bible she uses, the Chairman asked her if she knew what it meant to take an oath (the only thing she could think of was that an oath is a "bad word"). She replied that she was not sure. The Chairman thereupon directed the jury to dismiss the case as there could be no sworn evidence. 70

What is needed is i

ii

:

that cases such as

these should be tried before

juvenile Court Room,

that the Chairman without

a

wig

should sit at

a

a

jury

table

in

on

a

the

level as the witness, that Counsel shall not wear wigs,

same

iii iv v

vi

vii

that the general public, but not the press, should be excluded, that it should be at the discretion of the Chairman to rule that the name of the witness should not be mentioned in any Press Report of the case, that an experienced member of a juvenile Court panel should

sit with the Chairman of Quarter Sessions to asisst him in questioning child witnesses, that the Clerks of Quarter Sessions be asked to put early on the list of trials those cases in which children are known to be witnesses, so that they do not have the strain of waiting

indefinitely. Your Council may have other of

procedure.

suggestions Basil L.

for the

improvement Q. Henriques

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