Page 4413 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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a respite care worker, and from students of Marist College who were abused by Brothers Chute and Sutton. Today the ACT government honours the bravery of survivors of sexual abuse by introducing these significant reforms and sending a strong message that they are heard and we are acting. This bill establishes the legal framework for the use of intermediaries and ground rules hearings in the ACT, as others have said. In doing so it implements some of the central recommendations made in the royal commission’s criminal justice report.
An intermediary is an independent communications specialist whose role is to assist a person with communication difficulties to communicate their best evidence to police and to the court. The royal commission recommended that states and territories establish intermediary schemes because without them many complainants would struggle to participate in the criminal justice process.
We know that in other jurisdictions where intermediary schemes have been operating for some time the availability of the intermediary has sometimes been the reason that a prosecution case has been able to proceed at all. In one of the case studies examined by the royal commission a child victim of sexual assault in the ACT told his mother he felt like it was his fault that the accused was acquitted because of his struggle to communicate with the court. The then Director of Public Prosecutions noted in relation to the case that an intermediary would have made a significant difference. He said the defence in that case had used a common tactic—repeating a series of propositions until the witness accedes to the proposition. With this style of cross-examination children particularly can tire, lose energy and effectively start agreeing with the propositions put to them in order to end the cross-examination.
The cross-examination also involved closed questions and language beyond the understanding of the victim. Had an intermediary been available to the complainant in that case, they may have been able to let the court know when the complainant was having difficulty understanding and help the defence to communicate with the complainant in ways that facilitated the provision of the best, most accurate testimony.
The bill also introduces the practice of ground rules hearings in the ACT, another practice recommended by the royal commission to improve the capacity of complainants to engage in the criminal justice process. A ground rules hearing is a pre-hearing process where a court takes into consideration the communication, support and other needs of the witness and sets grounds rules accordingly.
The royal commission describes in its criminal justice report a number of cases in which ground rules hearings have been effective in helping complainants to participate in the court process. In one case, a child was quite anxious giving evidence and one thing that calmed her anxiety was the use of her dog, so the court allowed the dog to be present with her while she was giving evidence.
The introduction of intermediaries and ground rules hearings will have significant benefits for many victims of child sexual offences, children and young people, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable members of our community with communication difficulties. These reforms are part of our commitment to ensuring that the voices of vulnerable members in our society can be heard in the justice system.
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