Disbanding of Vulnerable Witness Team is a disservice to those at risk and criminal justice alike

After it was revealed last month that the Department of Justice had unofficially disbanded its Vulnerable Witness Team (VWT), a dampener was put on celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of “The Victims of Crime Charter”.

The VWT was established in the 1990s as part of a drive to provide vulnerable witnesses with a better service. Together with the police force’s Child Abuse Investigation Unit and the Social Welfare Department’s Family and Child Protection Service Unit, the VWT was part of a three-legged stool, which supported child victims and other vulnerable witnesses throughout criminal cases, and sought to provide them with the best possible deal.

In its heyday, the VWT, ably headed for many years by a senior prosecutor, Patrick W.S. Cheung, comprised 24 prosecutors, who combined their membership with other duties. Its mandate, said a departmental report, was “to safeguard the interests of victims and witnesses at the advisory stage and at court, and to work within a multi-agency context”. The VWT processed vulnerable witness cases, and, where necessary, conducted related prosecutions.

The VWT also ensured that the new laws enacted in 1995 to facilitate the giving of evidence by vulnerable witnesses were properly applied, and that prosecutions did not miscarry, as sometimes happened prior to its creation.

Prosecutors have very wide responsibilities to the vulnerable witnesses whose cases they handle. In particular, they have to ensure that their rights are respected, that their trials are properly prepared, that their interests are safeguarded at court (by, for example, ensuring that their cross-examination is tempered, not brutal), and that there is coordinated action by the various supporting agencies.

Specialist expertise is required, just as it is, for example, in relation to fraud cases, corruption cases or Basic Law cases. Vulnerable witness cases cannot simply be handed out willy-nilly to anyone who just happens to be available when a case comes in, which is what happened in the old days, but must be assigned to dedicated prosecutors, such being the rationale of the VWT.

When questioned last month about the VWT’s demise, a departmental spokesman claimed “growing” internal expertise, which meant there “was in fact no practical need for us to specially draw from the Team to handle such cases in recent years”, but this wholly missed the point.

The International Association of Prosecutors, to which the department belongs, has issued guidelines for cases concerning children, which stipulate that “prosecutors handling cases involving children as victims or witnesses should receive specialised training in dealing with these cases”, and this was integral to the VWT’s portfolio.

The spokesman, moreover, was wholly unaware of the VWT’s multifaceted responsibilities, which extended way beyond the particular cases he mentioned. Apart from working closely with the police and social services on prosecutions, the VWT also liaised with victims’ groups, including Against Child Abuse and the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation, provided lectures to outsiders on procedures for handling victims of crime, and engaged with overseas counterparts on achieving best practice in vulnerable witness cases.

The spokesman also had no idea that the VWT kept the laws concerning vulnerable witnesses under regular review, having regard to developments elsewhere. Had it still been around, the VWT would, for example, have undoubtedly been closely monitoring the news from Britain that the video-recording of the cross-examination of vulnerable witnesses will start in 2017, thereby avoiding the need for them to attend court at all.

The decision to disband the VWT was never announced, and was discovered quite by chance, when problems arose over a particular vulnerable witness case. There were no prior consultations with the department’s criminal justice partners or the NGOs, whose reactions can only be imagined. Those responsible were clearly oblivious of the importance of having a dedicated team in place, and a most regrettable message has gone out that the interests of vulnerable witnesses are no longer a priority.

Although it was assumed that the secretary for justice, Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung, was responsible, it has now emerged that the VWT was in fact wound up in (or about) 2010, on the watch of his predecessor, Wong Yan-lung. This historic blunder, however, must now be reversed, in the public interest, and Yuen should reconstitute the VWT without delay.

Grenville Cross SC is a criminal justice analyst