Helping child witnesses: 'One girl gave evidence with a hamster on her lap'

They might be victims of rape, or witnesses to murder. But can they really be relied upon to tell the truth at trial?

In the playroom, perched high above suburban rooftops, it feels as if you’re sailing in a sturdy little boat. Outside, beyond the fields, the sea is a strip of hazy grey-blue that glows silver where it meets the sky. Here on the floor is the scattered residue of a child at play: plastic tractors and fire engines spilling from a big red box, half-done puzzles, doll’s house furniture left awry. On a shelf sit the smiling knitted figures of a policeman and circuit judge, the details meticulously rendered, right down to the judge’s red sash and purple-trimmed robes.

Through a pair of open doors in the adjoining interview room – the green room, they call it, on account of the carpet and the cushions – Ruth Marchant and a police detective sit in a pair of battered mock leather armchairs, reflecting on their afternoon’s work. The boy they have been talking to hasn’t made any allegations, but his reaction when the man it’s feared has abused him is mentioned – his erratic breathing, the way he starts to rock – makes the detective feel sure he has something to tell. Marchant wraps one skinny-jeaned leg over the other. “It’s there, isn’t it?” Beside them is a child’s version of their chairs, startlingly minuscule by comparison.

‘What did it feel like?’ The boy is six. He starts to write: dis-gu-sting

There’s a much-loved slide on the stairs. 'Some children, when they’ve been talking, just need to go up and down'

The younger they tell, and the younger they’re kept safe, the better their possible future

We have a duty to enable the youngest children to give evidence if they can

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from Children | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2EAhal5