"Special Care Questioning" of Mentally Vulnerable Victims and Witnesses of Crime

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the practical experience of using ‘Special Care Questioning’ techniques, developed at the Psychology Unit of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. Special Care Questioning refers to techniques, and the avoidance of identifiable hazards, in obtaining accurate testimony from mentally vulnerable witnesses. In this context, ‘mentally vulnerable’ witnesses may include children, the mentally impaired, emotionally traumatized victims, and normal adults, in circumstances where memories of vital information are poor. This latter group has sometimes been selected to undergo ‘forensic hypnosis’ procedures to recover these memories (Ault, 1980). Occasionally, our category of ‘mentally vulnerable’ witnesses might include a cooperative suspect who cannot remember well whether he carried out a certain act in such a way that it qualifies as a serious crime. If he considers he might have done, and is questioned in a way to improperly prompt him to make a false confession to police, he can be considered to be vulnerable in our sense of the word. This last type of phenomenon has been identified as a ‘memory distrust syndrome’ (Gudjonsson & MacKeith, 1982). There have been a number of major unfortunate cases of miscarriage of justice in the United Kingdom concerning such accused persons. They are usually of below average intelligence.