Child Witness Reliability: A Qualitative Exploration of Professional Perceptions

Child witnesses are regularly involved in legal proceedings, though many cases struggle to progress. This may be related to professionals' perceptions, which can influence the child’s credibility and consequently affect outcomes. This research explored perceptions of child witness reliability held by criminal justice professionals, utilising focus groups to identify patterns in opinions. The main themes were an acknowledgement that case-specific factors impact on memory evidence, that the CJS is not appropriate for children, and perception of “child memory” is simultaneously reliable and unreliable. The results suggest practical changes could improve evidence quality and highlights a need for future research in the area.