“[SF] has been going near her arse” “My daughter has just said that my ex wife’s new partner has been playing with her bum” “A has said that her bottom has been touched by this person” “[SF] has touched her in the bottom” “A just said [SF] touches my bum hole and puts his fingers in my bum hole” “[SF] has been going near her bum section”
“in cases where repeated accounts are given of events…, the court must think carefully about the significance or otherwise of any reported discrepancies. They may arise for a number of reasons. One possibility is of course that they are lies designed to hide culpability. Another is that they are lies told for other reasons. Further possibilities include faulty recollection or confusion at times of stress or when the importance of accuracy is not fully appreciated, or there may be inaccuracy or mistake in the record-keeping or recollection of the person hearing and relaying the account. The possible effects of delay and repeated questioning upon memory should also be considered, as should the effect on one person of hearing accounts given by others. As memory fades, a desire to iron out wrinkles may not be unnatural – a process that might inelegantly be described as "story-creep" may occur without any necessary inference of bad faith”
“The importance of adhering to the guidance has been recognised repeatedly by this court – see for example Re B (Allegation of Sexual Abuse: Child's Evidence)[2006] EWCA Civ 773 ,[2006] 2 FLR 1071 , TW v A City Council[2011] EWCA Civ 17 ,[2011] 1 FLR 1597 , Re W, Re F[2015] EWCA Civ 1300 , and Re E (A Child)[2016] EWCA Civ 473 ,[2017] 1 FLR 1675 . Those four cases all concerned investigations in which interviews had been conducted in ways that purported to comply with the guidance but which, in various respects, manifestly failed to do so. The principles underpinning the guidance are, however, relevant to all investigations which include interviews of alleged victims of abuse, whether or not the interviews purport to have been conducted under the guidance.”
“The failure to comply with the ABE guidance will often have a decisive effect on the weight to be attached to evidence obtained as a result of the investigation. This is well illustrated by the four Court of Appeal cases cited above.”
“34. … Painful past experience has taught that the greatest care needs to be taken if the risk of obtaining unreliable evidence is to be minimised. Children are often poor historians. They are likely to view interviewers as authority figures. Many are suggestible. Many more wish to please. They do not express themselves clearly or in adult terms, so that what they say can easily be misinterpreted if the listeners are not scrupulous to avoid jumping to conclusions. They may not have understood what was said or done to them or in their presence. 35. For these and many other reasons it is of the first importance that the child be given the maximum possible opportunity to recall freely, uninhibited by questions, what they are able to say, and equally it is vital that a careful note is taken of what they say and also of any questions which are asked. All this and many other similar propositions, most of them of simple common sense, are set out in nationally agreed guidelines entitled Achieving Best Evidence. 40. There is no question of this evidence being inadmissible for failure to comply with the ABE guidelines, and that has not been suggested in argument for either parent. In a family case evidence of this kind falls to be assessed, however unsatisfactory its origin. To hold otherwise would be to invest the guidelines with the status of the law of evidence and it would invite the question: which failures have the consequence of inadmissibility? Clearly some failures to follow the guidelines will reduce, but by no means eliminate, the value of the evidence. Others may reduce the value almost to vanishing point.”
“52. … the Guidance makes it clear that the interviewer has to keep an open mind and that the object of the exercise is not simply to get the child to repeat on camera what she has said earlier to somebody else. We regret to say that we were left with a clear impression from the interview that the officer was using it purely for what she perceived to be an evidence-gathering exercise and in particular to make [the child] repeat on camera what she had said to her mother. That, emphatically, is not what ABE interviews are about and we have come to the view that we can place no evidential weight on it. 53. … [I]t is not sufficient for a judge to rely primarily on the fact that the child is able, when being interviewed, in a thoroughly unsatisfactory manner and contrary to the Guidance, to make a number of inculpatory statements. A clear analysis of all the evidence is required and the child's interview must be assessed in that context.”
“In Re W, Re F, I said (at paragraph 79): "I have sympathy for officers and social workers entrusted with the difficult task of speaking to children about allegations of this sort. The ABE Guidance is detailed and complex. But those details and complexities are there for a reason. Experience has demonstrated that very great care is required when interviewing children about allegations of abuse. The Guidance has been formulated and refined over the years by those with particular expertise in the field, including specialists with a deep understanding of how children perceive, recall and articulate their experiences. It would be unrealistic to expect perfection in any investigation. But unless the courts require a high standard, miscarriages of justice will occur and the courts will reach unfair and wrong decisions with profound consequences for children and families.”