Recording of interviews with vulnerable persons
185 Recording of interviews with vulnerable persons
If the prosecutor intends to call a vulnerable person to give evidence in proceedings, the brief of evidence may include a transcript of a recording made by an investigating official of an interview with the vulnerable person, during which the vulnerable person was questioned by the investigating official in connection with the investigation of the commission or possible commission of the offence (as referred to in section 306R).
A copy of the transcript of the recording must be certified by an investigating official as an accurate transcript of the recording and served on the accused person in accordance with section 183.
A brief of evidence that includes a transcript of a recording of an interview with a vulnerable person is not required also to include a written statement from the vulnerable person concerned.
The transcript of the recording is taken, for the purposes of this Division, to be a written statement taken from the vulnerable person. Accordingly, any document or other thing identified in the transcript as a proposed exhibit forms part of the brief of evidence.
Nothing in this Division requires the prosecutor to serve on the accused person a copy of the actual recording made by an investigating official of an interview with the vulnerable person.
This section does not affect section 306V (2).
In this section—
investigating official has the same meaning as it has in Part 6 of Chapter 6.
Note.
Part 6 of Chapter 6 allows vulnerable persons (children and cognitively impaired persons) to give evidence of a previous representation in the form of a recording made by an investigating official of an interview with the vulnerable person. Section 306V (2) (which is contained in that Part) provides that such evidence is not to be admitted unless the accused person and his or her Australian legal practitioner have been given a reasonable opportunity to listen to or view the recording.
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