Reported communication challenges for adults with intellectual disabilities giving evidence in court

Background: Giving evidence in court can be a challenging experiencefor any witness. Communication plays a key role in a witness's abilityto give evidence and participate in the court process. Research sug-gests that the current process of cross-examination within the UKadversarial system can negatively impact on eyewitness testimony.Adults with intellectual disabilities can be further impacted by: limita-tions in recall abilities; suggestibility to leading questions; difficultquestion types used by advocates; and unfamiliar language usedwithin the court setting. However, most research carried out on com-munication challenges for adults with intellectual disabilities when giv-ing evidence has used psychology based experimental methodology.Method: This current research aims to address the gap of researchwith actual witnesses by examining 19 court reports written by Regis-tered Intermediaries in Northern Ireland, identifying communicationdifficulties for victims, witnesses and defendants with intellectualdisabilities.Results/Conclusions: Findings show a wide range of difficulties forthe adult witness and also difficulties resulting from communicationused by communication partners, the advocates