Zajac Rachel, Garry Maryanne, London Kamala, Goodyear-Smith Felicity, Hayne Harlene
a Department of Psychology , University of Otago , Dunedin , New Zealand.
b School of Psychology , Victoria University of Wellington , New Zealand.
Memory. 2013 Jul;21(5):608-617. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2013.778287. Epub 2013 Mar 18.
Recent changes to the law in New Zealand have led to a marked increase in experts being called to give evidence in cases of alleged child sexual abuse. Here we outline some of the common misconceptions that are held by expert witnesses in these cases and we review research on patterns of abuse disclosure and retraction, symptoms of abuse, external influences on children's reports, and experts' ability to distinguish true from false reports. We also consider what experts can say about memory that has relevance for these cases. We conclude that many long-held notions of child sexual abuse and children's testimony that make their way into our courtrooms are not supported by empirical research, raising questions about who is-and who is not-qualified to act as an expert witness.
新西兰近期的法律变化导致在涉嫌儿童性虐待案件中被传唤作证的专家显著增加。在此，我们概述了这些案件中专家证人所持的一些常见误解，并回顾了关于虐待披露与撤回模式、虐待症状、对儿童报告的外部影响以及专家区分真实报告与虚假报告能力的研究。我们还考虑了专家对于与这些案件相关的记忆可以发表哪些看法。我们得出结论，许多长期以来进入我们法庭的关于儿童性虐待和儿童证词的观念并未得到实证研究的支持，这引发了关于谁有资格——以及谁没有资格——担任专家证人的问题。
