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The Dominion
May 31 2004
Sex abuse questioning
Letter to the Editor
by Wendy M Burgering, (Child
Abuse Interview Training Co-ordinator)
and Mark Copeland (Legal
Adviser, Police National Headquarters)
(Abridged)
We wish to comment on Alan Samson's article on the
research completed by Jane Rawls.
Dr Rawls's findings do raise concerns for police investigators and specialist
interviewers as to the reliability of children's disclosures of sexual abuse.
They highlight the need for considerable care to be taken when interviewing
children.
As Dr Rawls correctly points out, the use of open-ended questions is the best
technique. Closed and multichoice questions can be, and are, used if
required. The use of leading questions is not encouraged or taught.
Training for all specialist interviewers employed by the New Zealand Children
and Young Persons Service and the police is carried out at the Royal New Zealand Police
College. The training
is intensive and focuses on the need for interviewers to be aware of their
role and the importance of using the correct (open-ended) questioning
techniques.
Dr Rawls expresses concern as to the use of the body diagram and the level of
influence the diagrams may have on making children disclose when nothing has
happened. This raises the unanswered question of whether all the
"disclosures" of sexual abuse were made by the children only when
the diagrams were used.
Our concern about the research is the number of interviews that were carried
out with the children. Dr Rawls stated she did four interviews with each
child. For specialist interviewing this is well above the standard practice
of one interview. Specialist interviewers are very aware of the problems of
the reliability of the disclosure through over-interviewing.
Police have written to Dr Rawls asking for further information on her
findings and suggestions to improve the techniques used in the specialist
interviewing of children.
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