ABSTRACT
The Memorandum of Good Practice on Video Recorded Interviews with Child Witnesses for Criminal Proceedings (Home Office, 1992a) is excellent guidance for the investigative interviewing of older children who wish to seek justice, have good verbal skills, the support of their carers and who are safe. These are not the children generally selected as victims of sexual and sadistic abuse by serial predatory paedophiles who systematically target the most vulnerable, isolated and rejected children. By placing the prime focus for conviction of offenders on children's evidence we pressurise children who already have suffered enough. With low conviction rates the existing system rarely achieves justice for children; and in criminal proceedings Section 1 of the Children Act 1989, which emphasises the paramountcy of the child's welfare, takes second place to the concept of a fair trial. Even when paedophiles have been convicted, the traumatic impact of the trial on children has led some professionals to recommend that, 'never again should child victims of sexual abuse have to undergo days of cross-examination by lawyers' (Dobson, 1994).
