DERMOT MURNAGHAN:   When violent crimes come to court; the victims are often made to relive their horrific experience over days and sometimes weeks of questioning.   A defence barrister in a recent sex abuse case apparently worked out in protest at just how aggressive the questioning was. So what can be done to ease the experience? Well, I’m joined now by the policing and criminal justice minister Damien Green. A very good morning to you Mr. Green. It’s a tricky one this, isn't it? Because witnesses have to be robustly cross-examined, but they can’t be allowed to be bullied. Can you find a mid-way on this?  

DAMIAN GREEN:  I think we have to you're right. Anyone who’s a defendant deserves the right to have their barrister put their case and obviously test witnesses. But at the same time, particularly in the very difficult cases we’ve seen of child sex abuse which follows years of grooming. Then you have got victims who are also witnesses, who are particularly vulnerable and in many cases particularly unwilling to give evidence. It’s often taken a lot of effort on behalf of the police and other bodies to get them to the point where they will give evidence. So what we need to do is to find the appropriate balance. We’ve taken some steps already. We allow them to give evidence maybe behind screens. We’re increasing the use of video links so that that they can give evidence from another building if necessary. We’re also now piloting a thought of recording the interviews before hand so they can...  

DM: What difference would that make? It’s still with cross-examination presumably you can’t just have a statement. So why would that make a difference?  

DG: It makes a difference because it means it can often be done more quickly.   It’s the waiting for months and months and thinking about it. So they can do it quickly, and then they can have counselling straight afterwards. So that helps. What we’re announcing today is that we’re now going to look at ways of making sure that you don't get too much repetition that obviously the barristers can ask questions, but maybe if you’ve got multiple barristers, as you will do in multiple dependents, they can’t all start again from the start and put girls through very very difficult experiences. The worst case was in Telford where one girl had given three days of evidence, as it were, for the prosecution and then had 12 days in the witness box being examined by seven different barristers.  

DM: Is this the one where some of the barristers also felt it was going too far?  

DG: Yeah, the defence barrister walked out and she was asked questions like; do you repent of your sins? Now, what we’re gonna say is, and we’re gonna do this quite quickly over the summer, is that either we need a system where the individual barristers can only bring up new points, rather than just, as I say, start from scratch and ask old questions. Or whether the guidance to judges needs to be changed. 

DM: Ah, okay, well that’s the point. So you might not need to legislate, you can just issue guidance to judges. The judges should be able, by the very definition, very experienced in these kind of things, and they should be able to assess when it’s going too far, should they not? They already do that.    

DG: Well, judges do have, obviously the power to ...they control what goes on in the court room and they can and do sometimes stop lines of investigation. And you can contrast the various grooming cases we’ve had where characteristically you have multiple defendants and therefore multiple barristers. So as I say this case in Telford was, by common consent, not well done. The recent terrible Oxford case which was actually heard at the Old Bailey that was very managed. So the judges do have powers. So it’s a question of whether they have enough powers; whether they're clear enough or whether we do need extra powers to make sure...  

DM: Would you narrowly define it? You're using these as examples, these high profile cases and terrible cases, but by process of extension could you then say; well, look they can vulnerable victims, witnesses in any case. Any case that comes before a judge if the defence then say; well, look my client is really unhappy about having to give evidence in open court can they have these protections as well? Would you allow that?  

DG: Well, the specific point here is very much that you're likely to have multiple defendants. So it’ll be a very long process, but absolutely. There will be victims of domestic violence for example, but again there will be one accused in the dock and therefore one defence barrister. In that it’s a fair point, if because again, that’s an example where it’s normally women. They can be very reluctant to come forward and give evidence. So as part of a wider reform of the criminal justice system I’m putting the ability to have evidence given on video link from somewhere else into every court in the country. So that women very often don’t want to be in the same room as the person who may have been abusing them for years, and we’ll make that possible.  

DM: There’s another dimension to this, I want to bring in the legal aid cuts because of course, part of protecting these witnesses is getting them the best possible defence they possibly can. If they're not able to choose their solicitors and by extension their barristers or if they're not gonna get legal aid that’s an important plank of all that you’ve been talking about being removed from them.  

DG: Well, that’s two separate issues. You talk about the victims. The victims characteristically won’t be the defendants. The victims will be witnesses. It will be the person accused of violence or even worse; grooming and abuse over a long period maybe against multiple defendants. The purpose of the legal aid cut’s, obviously we have the most expensive legal aid system in Europe, just in an era where public spending is tight. Some of it has to come onto legal aid as well, but there will be legal aid solicitors available. The system will be efficient; people will have the capacity to defend themselves in court.  

DM: Mr. Green, thank you very much indeed.   

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