As a result of this lack of understanding by the jury and even other professionals, an individual who is able to get as far as the trial may still be faced with difficulties. This section will now examine these issues in more detail. The participants draw on the fact that we have to live with the consequences of the case not gaining a conviction. Apart from the distress of the witness having endured the whole process there is the fact that there is a possible perpetrator who doesn’t have to face changes and there are no restorative measures so nothing changes. There are no conciliatory measures and the witness is left to pick up the pieces of their life.
5.6.1 A danger to society
Police participants expressed their frustration and dissatisfaction when a case is acquitted. As Fiona and Richard purport in their interviews. Richard is particularly concerned with what the witness has endured as part of the court process and Fiona makes the point that the perpetrator is still able to cause harm to others.
‘….I mean, it's like that when she wouldn't give her evidence in court. It infuriated me because I knew he'd done it. Like, there was no doubt in my mind, absolutely no doubt from the evidence. And she was just intimidated. It wasn't that it didn't happen. And then, you look at someone like that, and think, he's out there now.’ (FIONA)
‘They go out, found not guilty… and after all the complainant went through, all of that traumatic experience and the court process didn’t support her… and do they have proper closure? No. I personally believe that it happened and she is still in fear’ (RICHARD)
‘It still feels unresolved’ (RICHARD)
‘I mean how do you cope if you know, somebody’s done it but for whatever reason, it can’t be taken forward, and then you kind of know that there’s somebody out there that should not be out there’ (FIONA)
5.6.2 A sense of injustice
months of preparation and anticipation can often feel devastated when the case is lost. They are particularly distressed if they attribute the outcome to their own performances in court. Police participants also indicated that they felt frustrated that cases did not lead to prosecution. Their main concern was the fact that there is a potential perpetrator who could go on to hurt others and justice has not been made.
5.6.3 Letting go!
To deal with this police adopt an element of professional detachment and reflective avoidance driven by the pressures of the job and to be able to manage the ambiguity of the unresolved outcome. This behaviour could also be indicative of risks to occupational stress or vicarious traumatisation (HMIC, 2014).
‘Yes its very rare that I speak about the case because if you do, I would be reliving it. Because it was such a challenging investigation that I’m almost going through it as I was at the time’ (RICHARD)
Victim accounts following the court process where the case has received a ‘not guilty verdict’ can vary greatly and it would appear that police officers within Cardiff and Vale provide different levels of support and feedback to witnesses. In some cases, the CPS has provided the feedback regarding their decision not to proceed to trial and possibly at the end of a case.
Conclusion
In conclusion, findings in this chapter have provided an understanding of the way in which police conceptualise a number of the problems experienced by victims of traumatic sexual violation. Training and experience are fundamental to this understanding and allow police to recognise symptoms of PTSD following trauma. They also try to make sense of memory difficulties by either trying to put themselves into a comparative situation or by considering external factors such as ‘drugs, alcohol, a desire not to remember, being too embarrassed to say’. They are acceptant of the fact that memory can be affected and can be inconsistent when first reporting to police and show empathy for the victim but agree that this
might be detrimental to taking a case further. They project a number of their own assumptions and consider how the jury will perceive these problems. In situations where the memory was affected badly and the individual displayed some uncharacteristic symptoms of PTSD, they were not confident that they would be able to pursue a case or if it did go to trial that they would get a conviction.
Findings from this current research also highlight the fact that the investigation and interviewing of witnesses is compromised when memory problems are evident, particularly when participants couldn’t make sense of it. These findings are reinforced by the literature regarding witness ambiguity and decision-making (Teners and Murphy (2008). Participants in this study reacted differently in response to this. Female participants appeared to put the witness emotional needs as a priority and the male participants put the task of the interview before these additional needs and were more likely to rely on other professionals to undertake the more supportive role.
As highlighted in the literature and from police participant interviews, there is a lack of flexibility in the interview process. Police saw this inflexibility in the timings of the interview to be one of the main barriers in the criminal justice process. They also expressed concerns regarding difficulties the jury would have in understanding the impacts on memory and a witness’s inability to recall certain events or when inconsistencies are drawn from their evidence, this would lead to a conviction not being made. The main implications from a wider social and legal context means that there may be a ‘rapist’ who is still at risk to causing harm to others and there is no system in place to manage this. Police find this situation frustrating and suggest that they ‘psychologically move on’ or become emotionally detached from the case and move on with the next case. It is recognised that this could be a cause for a cumulative stress response or an occupational hazard that could result in negativity and despondency within the force (Pearlman and McKay, 2008). Police regarded peer support as a means of managing this but would sometimes find it difficult to go back to a case when they had emotionally withdrawn from it, often leading to a lack of communication with the victim following engagement in the CJS. This can have an impact on the witness who may be equally frustrated with the lack of conviction (CPS, 2017).