Centre for Language and Communication Science Research at the School of Health and Psychological Sciences, City, University of London welcomes Tina Pereira to discuss their findings on the manner in which low technology communication aids are selected, introduced and managed in intermediary mediated police investigative interviews, as part of the research seminar series.
Abstract
Section 30 of the youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (UK Parliament 1999) allows the use of communication aids at trial, and these are typically managed by intermediaries i.e., trained communication specialists, also legally permitted under Section 29 of the same Act.
This seminar uses an excerpt from a real police interview, to focus on the manner in which low technology communication aids are selected, introduced and managed in intermediary mediated police investigative interviews, carried out in England and Wales.
I use multimodality Conversation Analysis (Sacks et al. 1974; Norris 2004; Mondada 2014) to demonstrate how low technology aids can facilitate a vulnerable (alleged) victim’s answer to the verbal open question “what happened?” in an unrehearsed and unbiased manner, thereby improving the quality of their answer.
Aids used in this manner, retain the functionality of open questions while reducing their linguistic complexity. I briefly examine the roles of the three participants in the context of Goffman’s participation Framework (Goffman 1963).
About the speaker
Tina Pereira, PhD, is an intermediary in the criminal justice system in England and Wales, where she works with vulnerable witnesses, defendants and suspects.
She also has over 30 years working as a speech and language therapist with individuals with a range of neurodevelopmental conditions.
She is particularly interested in vulnerability in legal settings (police interviewing as well as in courts) and low technology communication aids that augment and replace spoken communication.
She is currently involved in research relating to judges’ perceptions of vulnerability in legal direction-making.
She is also involved in research relating to access to justice for young people with a Learning Disability.
Tina has been on the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) training team and currently serves on the Registered Intermediary Reference Team, that advises the MoJ on a range of operational and strategic matters.
She has delivered training and presentations to practitioners and academics both in the UK and overseas.
Attendance at City events is subject to our terms and conditions.