A team of legal professionals, including three judges, will be visiting Britain sometime in May as part of an o­ngoing effort to introduce the new child witness support service in Malaysian courts.

The team, including three judicial and legal service officers and a lawyer representing the Malaysian Bar, will have a firsthand look o­n how the courts in Britain implement the witness support programme.

The Legal Affairs Division in the Prime Minister's Department has been tasked to implement the programme with the aim of reducing the psychological trauma undergone by a child witness, who is also the victim, before and during trial.

"What we are working o­n is a pilot project aimed at preparing child witnesses for their appearance in court," said a department spokesperson when contacted for further updates o­n the programme.

"The programme is to reduce the trauma associated with a child witness' court experience."

The project's lead consultant is Dr Tony Butler, the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire who held national responsibility for child protection issues in Britain before retiring in 2001.

During his many visits to Malaysia beginning March 2001, Butler was accompanied by police colleagues and members of Victim Support the non-governmental organisation that runs the programme in Britain.

There were reciprocal visits by members of the Malaysian team.

Butler's next visit scheduled for March will focus o­n a workshop for the enforcement agencies.

British expertise

Last December, British High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur Bruce Cleghorn handed over video-recording suite and equipment for the recording of child interviews to the police and the department as part of the project.

He had said in a speech then that Britain had been working for 15 years o­n ways to improve the experiences of child victims in the criminal justice system and had introduced video-recorded evidence from child victims in 1992.

Victim Support is an independent organisation offering free and confidential services, including related information, through trained volunteers to victims and their families in court before, during and after trial.

Meanwhile, several proposals are being considered by the Legal Affairs Division, such as the introduction of video recording of interviews and closed-circuit television (CCTV) in court.

The CCTV idea is to allow a child witness to overcome his or her nervousness by being able to talk about the incident from a different venue by hooking up the network to a screen in the courtroom.

New techniques

The division is also looking at physical changes such as child-friendly waiting rooms, specialised prosecutors and expediting trials o­n child crimes.

Five technical committees were set up to oversee the implementation following a workshop jointly organised by the Legal Affairs Division and the British High Commission o­n 'Collaborative action towards the preparation of children for court proceedings' late last year.

Police will handle the first part of the two-phased project involving the video-recording suite for recording child witness statements.

For this purpose, selected investigating officers had undergone training by their British counterparts in mid-January.