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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> H (A Child), Re [2014] EWCA Civ 232 (17 February 2014) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/232.html Cite as: [2014] EWCA Civ 232 |
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ON APPEAL FROM THE LANCASTER COUNTY COURT
(MR JUSTICE JACKSON)
B4/2013/3257 Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE RYDER
SIR STANLEY BURNTON
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IN THE MATTER OF H (A CHILD) |
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Miss J Cross, QC and Mr J O'Brien (instructed by Lancashire County Council) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
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a) The boys had been questioned by their own mother and by an aunt in a period of a week during which no-one knows what happened.
b) There was no planning for the ABE interviews and, therefore, no knowledge on the part of the interviewer about the boys' family circumstances, including the house in which it was said the abuse occurred.
c) The interviews themselves were seriously flawed containing as they did graphic examples of the following:
(i) no understanding of the difference between truth and lies and/or the effect of telling lies on the part of each of the cousins.
(ii) no rapport or ordinary conversation so as to allow the boys to settle and gain appropriate professional trust in the interviewers.
(iii)no free recall or an opportunity for spontaneous recall of what it is that the boys reflected upon.
(iv) seriously leading questions, both open leading questions and closed leading questions, in both cases tending to suggest either that an answer must be known to them or indeed, what the answer should be.
(v) a confusion between asking the boys to recall what has happened and what they had previously told their mother had happened.
(vi) inaccurate rehearsal or summarising of what the boys had said in interview.
"He attempted to perform anal sex upon K, though it is not clear whether there was any significant penetration."
For these reasons, I would refuse permission and dismiss the appeal.