Antaki-etal2015

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Antaki-etal2015
BibType ARTICLE
Key Antaki-etal2015
Author(s) Charles Antaki, Emma Richardson, Elizabeth Stokoe, Sara Willott
Title Police interviews with vulnerable people alleging sexual assault: Probing inconsistency and questioning conduct
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Police, interviews, intellectual disability, sexual assault, questions
Publisher
Year 2015
Language English
City
Month
Journal Journal of Sociolinguistics
Volume 19
Number 3
Pages 328–350
URL Link
DOI 10.1111/josl.12124
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Reporting sexual assault to the authorities is fraught with difficulties, and these are compounded when the complainant is hindered by an intellectual disability (ID). In a study of 19 U.K. police interviews with complainants with ID alleging sexual assault and rape, we found that most interviewing officers on occasion pursued lines of questioning which not only probed inconsistencies (which is mandated by their guidelines), but implicitly questioned complainants’ conduct (which is not). We detail two main conversational practices which imply disbelief and disapproval of the complainants’ accounts and behaviour, and whose pragmatic entailments may pose problems for complainants with ID. Such practices probably emerge from interviewers’ foreshadowing of the challenges likely to be made in court by defence counsel. As a policy recommendation, we suggest providing early explanation for the motivation for such questioning, and avoiding certain question formats (especially how come you did X? and why didn't you do Y?).

Notes