Appendix I - Orkney Suspected Child-Abuse Case
comments re:The Interviewing of the Nine Children.
108.No specific decision to interview
the children was taken or recorded (14.60).
109. There
was no detailed consideration of the purpose of the interviews (14.61) and detailed
planning of them (14.62).
110. No detailed assessment
was made of the mental and developmental status of the children (14.63).
111.
The interviewers' workloads were inadequately planned and monitored
(14.64) and there were no regular reviews of the interviewing planned or held (14.65).
112. There was inadequate joint planning for the interviews (14.66), no joint
supervision (14.67) and no sufficient mutual understanding of the inter-relation
of the work of the agencies (14.68).
113. No plan was made for the assessing and reporting of the work (14.69).
114. Insufficient consideration was given to the propriety of using the interviewers
who had been involved with the W children (14.70).
115.There was some deficiency in
the experience and skill of the RSSPCC interviewers (14.71), inadequate control
of their practice (14.72) and no clear system for supervision and support (14.73).
116. The police interviewers were inadequately trained
(14.74) and lacked adequate supervision (14.75).
117. No adequate consideration was given to the number of interviewers required (14.76).
118. There was no clarification of the kind and extent of
background information necessary
for the interviewers (14.77).
119. Consideration should have been given to the relationship to be developed between
the interviewers and
the carers of the children (14.78).
120. While the facilities
were adequate (14.79) there were inadequate instructions given with regard
to the methods and nature of the recording of interviews (14.80).
121. Further consideration should have been given to the video-recording
of interviews (14.82) and the
quality of audio-recording was at times deficient (14.82).
122. A coordinated approach to the need for the prompt transcribing of audio-tapes
should have been devised. (14.83).
123. Inadequate written
records were made of the interviews and inadequate attention paid to the recording
of details of the creation of the drawings (14.84).
124. There was a failure in the collation of all the information about the children
as could have been achieved
by a case manager (14.85).
125. An approach to the interviewing
was adopted by the RSSPCC and allowed by the Orkney Social Work Department
which was inappropriate for investigative work (14.86).
126. The interviewers failed on occasions to pursue matters raised by a child
and were unduly concerned with their own agenda (14.87).
127. The interviewers failed to plan adequately how to deal with a child's denial
of allegations (14.88) and how
to introduce explicit information (14.89) and they over-stressed their belief
in the truth of the allegations (14.90).
128. The interviewers
made inappropriate use of the technique of reintroducing earlier drawings
(14.91), of leading questions (14.92) and in one case of personal material (14.93).
129. Neither the number (14.94) nor the programming (14.95)
of interviews were planned in advance while their duration varied with the
circumstances (14.96).
130. The timing and the scheduling of the interviews was varied (14.97)
and in some instances the number was excessive (14.98).
131. The purpose of the interviewing was not explained fully to the children
(14.99).
132. The children were satisfactorily looked after
at interviews (14.100) and all the interviewers demonstrated a proper care and
concern for them (14.101).
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