Sexual Offences: Trials
(asked on 5th September 2022) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has plans to allow historical sexual abuse victims to have a character witness during trial.
This question was answered on 13th September 2022
The Department does not currently have any plans to allow historical sexual abuse victims to have a character witness during trial. In criminal trials, including those involving accusations of historical sexual abuse, rules of evidence do not permit the admission of evidence of the good character of a prosecution witness in order to bolster their credibility, even when they are the complainant.