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R V Green Youth Court Case Essay

1926 Words8 Pages

Children have been found to experience much higher levels of communication difficulty in the criminal justice system and this diminishes their ability to give evidence with the coherence desired by the court to facilitate prosecution of crime. In the case of R-v- Green youth court, the court held that There was no absolute right for a defendant to be allowed to face his accusers. Special measures to protect a vulnerable or intimidated witness from the accused would not normally be applicable to a defendant witness, but other means were available to a court to assist a defendant in ensuring that where he had communication difficulties, his case was put across properly. The court had an obligation to achieve fairness in each particular case, and that requirement was met by the system. This application was dismissed but the ruling gave critical understanding that a child under 17 years qualifies to be a vulnerable witness if they have communication difficulty and vulnerability was more circumstantial than mere age Planning is very crucial in remediating the challenge of vulnerability and it largely hinges on early identification. Exclusive …show more content…

As stated earlier, the first point of identification is the police or any professional who may so be called to identify any vulnerabilities. After identification is done, information is sent to the next level for it to be captured and acted upon. After a decision is taken by the higher agencies like the crown prosecution service and witness protection and the court, the necessary measures are then applied with strong collaboration between or among the relevant agencies. Identification is thus a process and as was shown in R-v-Green Youth Court herein, even the most straight forwards decision like may be an issue and measures and assistance are not merely granted on the basis of

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