Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

This is another aspect of a situation in which the possible perpetrator, unrepresented, cross-examines a witness. The Minister said in respect of an adult victim of domestic violence that they would not necessarily be the most vulnerable of the people who come before the courts. The amendment relates to the most vulnerable because it relates to the pretty unusual, but not absolutely exceptional, situation in which a child has made allegations against the father not in a public law case but in a private law case. Norgrove, in the family justice review, underlines the fact that a proportion of abuse cases come through the private law sector. In that sort of case, the father has the right—it could be the mother, although generally it is the father—to cross-examine the child if the child is making the allegations and comes to court. If the father cross-examines the child about the abuse that the child has said he or she has suffered at the hands of the father, that is a further form of abuse of a really appalling kind. It would be rare and there would be very little expense. It would happen only where the judge said that the child has to give evidence—in most cases children do not give evidence—and only where the father wanted to ask the child questions. Again, the father or the mother who is accused of abuse has the right to put the case to the child that it is not true. This can be done by a lawyer. It is upsetting for a child, but it can be done with a considerable degree of discretion. It is done very regularly in the criminal courts by barristers and solicitors, many of whom have had training in how to ask questions. What on earth would the Minister think of an eight or nine year-old who is able to explain very clearly what has happened to him or her being cross-examined by the father about the intimate allegations of how the father has behaved? I beg to move.