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A Qualitative Examination of “Ground Rules” Implementation Practice in

Investigative Interviews with Children

Sarah J. Kr€ahenb€uhla, Mark Bladesb and Julie Cherrymanc

a Department of Psychology, Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK;

b Department of Psychology,

University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; c Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth,

Portsmouth, UK

There are specific guidelines for forensic interviews with children [for example, Crown Prosecution Service. (2011). Achieving best evidence in criminal proceedings: Guidance on interviewing victims and witnesses, and guidance on using special measures. London: Crown Prosecution Service]. Such guidelines include a set of “ground rules” � these are procedures that should be followed at the start of an interview to explain the nature of the interview to a child and to ensure that evidence is obtained in a legally appropriate way. The procedures are also used as a way to demonstrate how well a child understands aspects of the interview. This study investigated how ground rules were implemented in 51 investigative interviews with child witnesses and victims alleging criminal activities. The results showed that there was a lack of consistency in ground rule implementation, and that even when ground rules were implemented, their relevance to the remainder of the interview was not made clear. These findings highlight concerns as to the efficacy of ground rule implementation practices.

Key words: child abuse; forensic interviews; interviewing protocol.

An investigative interview conducted with a

child is an interaction that provides evidence,

and an insight into what the child knows and

remembers. Children’s testimony, elicited in

video-recorded forensic interviews, is often

crucial because there is frequently a lack of

corroborative evidence in cases of child abuse

(Davis, Hoyano, Keenan, Maitland, & Mor-

gan, 1999).

Children are considered to be

“conversational apprentices” (Lamb &

Brown, 2006) who generally need to be

implicitly guided by adults in any conver-

sation (Oxburgh, Myklebust, & Grant,

2010). In addition, in a forensic interview,

children also have to be guided explicitly

to help them understand the procedural

context of the interview. Therefore, the

effectiveness of an interview is greatly

influenced by the behaviour of the inter-

viewer (Leander, Granhag, & Christianson,

2009).

The present study examined implementa-

tion practice of the explicit guidance that is

given to children by interviewers at the begin-

ning of an interview. This guidance is given

in the form of “ground rules” along with a

discussion about truth and lies. Both the

ground rules and the truth and lies discussion

are required by the Achieving Best Evidence

Correspondence: Sarah J Kr€ahenb€uhl, Department of Psychology, Science Centre, Staffordshire Univer- sity, Leek Road, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 2DF, UK. Tel.: vC44 1782 294600; Email: s.krahenbuhl@staffs .ac.uk

� 2015 The Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 2015

Vol. 22, No. 6, 830�841, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2015.1015206

(ABE) interviewing protocols (Crown Prose-

cution Service, 2011; Home Office, 2002,

2007). The ABE is the official guidance for

use in interviews with vulnerable witnesses in

England and Wales (Youth Justice and Crimi-

nal Evidence Act 1999). Similar guidance is

also found in other countries: for example,

guidelines such as the National Institute of

Child Health and Human Development

(Lamb, Hershkowitz, Orbach, & Esplin,

2008; Orbach & Lamb, 2000) in the United

States; Guidance on Joint Investigative Inter-

viewing of Child Witnesses in Scotland

(Scottish Government, 2011); Achieving Best

Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance

on Interviewing Victims and Witnesses, the

use of Special Measures and the Provision of

Pre-trial Therapy (Criminal Justice System

Northern Ireland, 2010) in Northern Ireland;

and Provincial Child Abuse Protocol (Gov-

ernment of Saskatchewan, 2011) in Saskatch-

ewan, Canada. There are similar principles

being applied to investigative interviews in

Sweden, Norway, Finland, Israel and other

countries.

Such guidelines suggest that interviews

begin with a rapport phase, followed by a

free narrative phase in which children should

be given the opportunity to report what hap-

pened with little interruption from the inter-

viewer. The third phase is the questioning

stage during which the interviewer specifi-

cally asks for more details, and the final phase

concerns closure when the interviewer sum-

marizes and finishes the interview.

In the rapport stage, the ABE protocol

states that interviewers “should normally

encompass” (s. 2.100, Home Office 2002;

mentioned also in Home Office, 2007 and

Crown Prosecution Service, 2011) the follow-

ing four ground rules:

� remind the child that the interviewer was not present and is therefore rely-

ing on the child’s account (this is

called “interviewer not present” in the

tables);

� tell the child that if they do not under- stand a question they should say so

(“don’t understand”);

� tell the child that if they do not know the answer to a question they should

say so (“don’t know”); and

� say that if the interviewer misunder- stands or incorrectly summarizes what

the child has said then the child should

point this out and correct the inter-

viewer (“interviewer correction”).

In addition, the ABE states that towards

the end of the rapport stage there should be a

discussion that explores and demonstrates

the child’s understanding of truth and lies.

This discussion should emphasize the impor-

tance of the child being truthful in everything

he or she says during the interview. With the

exception of the 2011 edition of the ABE, it

is also recommended that a discussion to

find out whether a child understands the

adverse consequences of telling lies is

included. To help children to understand the

ground rules, the ABE stresses the benefits

of using concrete examples to illustrate the

points being made. The ABE also advocates

giving a child the opportunity to practise

using the ground rules. The initial discussion

of the ground rules takes place during the

rapport stage of the interview, but the ABE

points out that it may be beneficial to reiter-

ate some of the ground rules at the beginning

of the questioning (i.e. the third) stage of the

interview.

The aforementioned interviewing proto-

cols emphasize the use of those ground rules

in an interview (Powell & Lancaster, 2003).

However, previous research has not unambig-

uously supported the usefulness of these

aspects of an interview. For instance, there

have been concerns as to the influence of the

truth and lies discussion; specifically, whether

the discussion itself or the promise to tell the

truth is the key factor (London & Nunez,

2002; Lyon & Dorado, 2008; Lyon, Saywitz,

Kaplan, & Dorado, 2001; McCarron,

Ground Rules Implementation 831

Ridgway, & Williams, 2004; Talwar, Lee,

Bala, & Lindsay, 2002, 2004). In respect to

the other ground rules, researchers have dem-

onstrated some positive effects of using

ground rules (Mulder & Vrij, 1996), but have

also found limitations in the benefits of their

implementation (Teoh & Lamb, 2010). For

example, explaining to children that they

should say “I don’t know” or “I don’t under-

stand” does not necessarily have a positive

impact on a child’s conversational behaviour

(Beuscher & Roebers, 2005; Blades, Water-

man, & Gibson, 2003; Ellis, Powell,

Thomson, & Jones, 2003; Waterman, Blades,

& Spencer, 2004). A further issue is that

interviewers’ implementation of the ground

rules, both in England and Wales and in other

countries, is often incomplete and inconsis-

tent (Cederborg, Orbach, Sternberg, & Lamb,

2000; Hershkowitz & Elul, 1999; Powell &

Hughes-Scholes, 2009; Thoresen, Lønnum,

Melinder, Stridbeck, & Magnussen, 2006;

Westcott & Kynan, 2006).

In the present study, we considered the

use of ground rules by analysing when they

were included in an interview, the order in

which they were introduced and the way in

which they were implemented. We also

noted how a child’s understanding of the

ground rules was assessed, and any repeti-

tions of these procedures later in the

interview.

Consistent with the interviewing proto-

col guidance, we made several predictions.

We predicted that all five ground rules (i.e.

the four rules described above plus the

truth and lies discussion) would be dis-

cussed during the rapport stage of the inter-

view, with the truth and lies discussion

taking place towards the end of the stage.

We expected that the ground rules would

be illustrated with concrete examples. We

predicted that the child would be given the

opportunity to practise using the ground

rules. We also expected that the rules might

sometimes be reiterated during the ques-

tioning stage.

Method

Materials

The materials comprised 51 transcripts of

investigative interviews with child witnesses

(19 male and 32 female). The sample had

been obtained through opportunity sampling

from one police force in England during a

period of three months in 2005. The inter-

views were transcribed as part of the legal

process. The ages of the children interviewed

ranged from 5 to 17 years, M D 11 years 7 months, SD D 3.56 years. Forty-six of the interviews were conducted by a police officer

and five were conducted by a social worker.

Twenty-three interviewers conducted the

interviews; twelve interviewers conducted a

single interview only, four interviewers con-

ducted two interviews, four conducted three

interviews, and single interviewers conducted

four, six and nine interviews.

Twenty-seven of the interviews addressed

allegations of sexual abuse, 21

addressed allegations of physical abuse, and

3 addressed allegations of both physical and

sexual abuse. Following the investigative

interviews, 14 cases resulted in a charge or

charges being made, in 21 cases no further

action was taken, and in 16 cases there was

no information about the outcome of the case.

Ethical approval for use of the transcripts

and accompanying procedural data for use in

this study was obtained from Staffordshire

University and from The Open University

prior to commencement.

Procedure

The analysis was conducted in two parts.

First, each transcript was examined to estab-

lish which interview stages were present and

which ground rules were included. The dis-

cussion relating to each ground rule was

recorded. The following features were then

considered and are discussed in greater detail

below: the position and order of the ground

rules, the way in which the ground rules were

832 S. J. Kr€ahenb€uhl et al.

presented, assessment practice, and if/when

the ground rules were reiterated at a later

stage in the interview.

Presentation: Position, Order and Format

We recorded the stage of the interview when

the initial presentation of each ground rule was

mentioned, and the order in which the ground

rules were presented. Any advice that could be

considered as a “ground rule” even if it was not

mentioned as such in the ABE (Home Office,

2002), for example, telling a child that some

words that might be inappropriate in other con-

texts could be said in the interview, was

labelled as “other 1”, “other 2” and so on. The

person who first mentioned the ground rule

was recorded. It was noted whether the

rule was presented as a question or a statement,

whether an example was included, and if so,

who was included in the example (the child,

the interviewer, a parent, etc.).

Assessment Practice

We noted how the child’s reaction to the pre-

sentation of the ground rules was assessed by

the interviewer and whether this assessment

was conducted through the inclusion of a tag

question (such as asking the child “Okay?”)

or through a separate question. For each

assessment, it was noted whether the child

was given the opportunity to provide a

response or whether the interview proceeded

without any response being elicited, whether

the child was asked to provide verification or

give an example, and whether the assessment

method was phrased as an open-ended or as a

closed request.

Reiteration

Following the initial presentation of a ground

rule, the rest of the transcript was examined

to establish which (if any) ground rules were

repeated and if so, by whom, in which stage,

order, format, assessment style and if there

was any immediate consequence on the

child’s statement (for example, whether the

child then incorporated the ground rule in his

or her subsequent responses, or whether there

was a contradiction with anything that had

been said previously).

Second, the discussion of the ground

rules, and any subsequent references to the

ground rules, were analysed thematically

(Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Results

Descriptive Statistics

To facilitate the analysis, the truth and lies

discussion was referred to as a ground rule,

making a total of five “ground rules.” The

full set of five ground rules was not fully

implemented in all interviews, with a mean

of 3.14 ground rules (SD D 1.34) per inter- view. Table 1 shows the range in the number

of ground rules found in the interviews.

Table 2 provides data relating to specific

ground rules. The ground rules were generally

presented in the rapport stage of an interview.

However, there was considerable inconsis-

tency in the inclusion of each ground rule.

The use each of the ground rule ranged from

“interviewer correction”, which was present in

only a third of all interviews, to “truth and

lies”, which was included in almost all inter-

views (see the first row of Table 2).

Table 1. The extent of ground rules included in interviews

Number of ground rules implemented

None One Two Three Four All five

Number of interviews 2 4 9 15 12 9

Ground Rules Implementation 833

To code the order in which the ground

rules were introduced, a score was given to

each ground rule as follows. The first ground

rule to be mentioned was scored 1, the sec-

ond ground rule mentioned was scored 2,

and so on. The sum of scores for each indi-

vidual ground rule from all the interviews

was then divided by the number of occasions

that the ground rule was used. For example,

the ground rule “interviewer not present”

was included in 22 interviews and achieved

a score of 30 across all these interviews; this

led to an “order of implementation score” of

1.36. The lower this score, the earlier the

ground rule was introduced in the interview

(see Table 2). The ground rule “interviewer

not present” tended to be one of the first

introduced, and the rule “interviewer

correction” was generally included after the

other rules The discussion of “truth and lies”

was generally conducted later than the other

ground rules, but not always after all the

rest.

There was considerable variation in

ground rule implementation practices, as

shown in Table 3. For most of the ground

rules, the rule was given to the child as a

statement without an example being given.

Assessment of whether the child understood

occurred for half of the ground rules, but the

assessment was usually conducted through

the use of a tag question, for example saying

“yeah?” or “okay?” at the end of the

statement or question. Children were rarely

given the opportunity to “practise” using

most of the ground rules. However, the truth

and lies rule was implemented in a different

way from the other ground rules (see

Table 3). For truth and lies, the interviewers

generally assessed children’s understanding

by asking the child to provide a verbal

response to a question that was not in a tag-

question format, but in a an open-ended for-

mat, for example, “So, if I said to you what

is the difference between truth and lies, what

would you say?.” An opportunity to demon-

strate understanding through “practise” or by

using an example was more frequently pro-

vided in the truth and lies discussion than for

the other ground rules.

Repetition of a ground rule, or further ref-

erence to an aspect of a ground rule occurred

on eight occasions. In five interviews, a single

ground rule was mentioned again, and in one

interview three ground rules were repeated

following a break in the interview. All these

reiterations occurred towards the end of the

questioning stage. These reiterations were

made by the interviewer only; on no occasion

did a child refer to the rules either directly or

implicitly. Three of the prescribed ground

rules and one of the “other” ground rules

were reiterated: that the interviewer had not

been present, to tell the truth, that the inter-

viewer should be corrected if necessary and

to provide as much detail as possible.

Table 2. Ground rule implementation practice

Ground rule

Interviewer not present

Don’t understand

Don’t know

Interviewer correction

Truth and lies Other

How often included (%) 43.1 64.7 76.5 33.3 96.1 51.0

Stage in which presented (%)

Rapport 90.9 100.0 97.3 94.1 93.9 88.9

Free Narrative 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.0 7.4

Questioning 9.1 0.0 2.7 5.9 4.1 3.7

Closure 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Implementation order 1.36 2.45 2.44 3.94 3.14 2.92

834 S. J. Kr€ahenb€uhl et al.

Thematic Analysis by Ground Rule

Interviewer Points Out That He or She Was

Not Present at the Event

Individual’s position. This was expressed in

three ways � the interviewer as an individual, the interviewer representing the police and the

child. Many of the statements began with a per-

sonal pronoun “I wasn’t there”, “you tell us as

much as you can” and “we haven’t been told.”

The child was put in a position of authority

“the only person that can tell me what’s hap-

pened is you”, but at the same time the child

was sometimes made to appear lacking in

awareness “you might not think it important,

but I want you to tell me everything.”

Placing of responsibility. The interviewers

placed responsibility on the child, in two

ways. First, the child was obliged to give as

much detail as possible “you tell us as much

as you can” and “you tell us in as much

detail.” Second, interviewers used phrases

that suggested that the inclusion of detail was

to benefit the interviewer, “so I’m relying on

you to give me as much information as possi-

ble”, “this is where I need your help really

because I wasn’t there” and “I need you to

tell me everything.”

The Interviewer Points Out the Child Might

Not Understand Something

The interviewers explained the problem of

not understanding from both the interviewer’s

perspective and from the child’s perspective.

For example, from the interviewer’s perspec-

tive: “because I might ask you a question that

you don’t understand”, or “because I might

use a word or phrase or something which you

don’t understand what I’m getting at really”,

“it might be a word that I use that you’ve not

heard before”, and from the child’s perspec-

tive “because it is important you understand

what I’m asking you as well” and “not every-

one understands the same things.”

Direction. Interviewers provided a list of

“do’s and don’ts” to the child, providing spe-

cific examples of appropriate and

Table 3. Ground rule implementation processes

Ground rule

Interviewer not present

Don’t understand

Don’t know

Interviewer correction

Truth and lies Other

Initial presentation (%)

Statement without example 95.5 90.9 91.9 64.7 46.9 92.6

Question without example 4.5 3.0 0.0 23.5 34.7 3.7

Statement with example 0.0 6.0 5.4 11.8 2.0 3.7

Question with example 0.0 0.0 2.7 0.0 16.4 0.0

Child’s understanding assessed (%)

No assessment 45.5 15.2 29.7 18.8 4.1 33.3

Via a tag question or separate question 54.5 84.8 70.3 81.3 63.2 59.2

Required the child to provide an example 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 32.6 7.4

Practise included (%)

No practise 100.0 100.0 100.0 94.1 30.4 81.5

Delivered as a statement only 0.0 0.0 0.0 5.9 6.5 3.7

Involving the child only 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 6.5 11.1

Involving the child and the interviewer only

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15.2 3.7

Involving a person who was not present 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 41.3 0.0

Ground Rules Implementation 835

inappropriate responses. For example, inter-

viewers made comments like, “you just say ‘I

don’t understand, can you say that again’ or

something like that”, “say ‘I’m not sure’”,

“say ‘what are you talking about?’”, “say

‘hang on a minute’”, or interviewers gave

more general guidance such as “ask me to

repeat it or explain it in a different way.”

Interviewers warned children about inap-

propriate behaviour. For example, the child

was specifically told “don’t guess or anything

because you know I’m not interested if you

guess” and “so don’t guess either.”

What is to be done. There was very little

sense of joint collaboration in the “dealing

with” the problem � the only mention of such collaboration was when one interviewer

said “not everyone understands the same

things . . . we’ll work through that.” Other- wise the responsibility was put on the child to

say when there was a problem and on the

interviewer to deal with it through a method

decided by the interviewer “I’ll try to

rephrase it”, “I’ll try and ask you in a differ-

ent way”, “I’ll try and ask you again but

maybe change it so that you do understand

me”, and “I’ll try and say it in a different

way.”

The Interviewer Says it is Acceptable to Say

“Don’t Know”

This was addressed in a very similar way to

“don’t understand” (above). The differences

were in the reassurances offered by the inter-

viewer, and concern about acquiescence.

Explanation of issue and its importance.

The emphasis of responsibility was consis-

tently placed on the child; the interviewers

took no responsibility for asking questions

that the child might have been unable to

answer. The interviewers made comments

like, “so we only talk about what you do

remember and what is true” and “so we only

have to talk about what you can remember

and what you know.”

Direction. There was a list of “do’s and

don’ts” with suggestions of phrases that the

child could use “just tell me ‘I don’t know’”,

“say ‘I don’t know’, alright, or ‘I can’t

remember’”, “say if you are not sure.” The

“don’ts” were related to guessing, “I don’t

want you to guess”, “what we’d rather you do

is not guess” and “I don’t want you to just

guess things.”

Reassurance and concerns. The inter-

viewers tried to reassure the child that it

might indeed be appropriate to say “I don’t

know” � the interviewers made comments such as “it doesn’t matter”, “it’s OK”, “that’s

absolutely fine” and “say ‘I don’t know’, no

problem with that.” However, the inter-

viewers also expressed concern that the child

might feel it was inappropriate not to answer

a question put by an interviewer. The inter-

viewers said: “don’t be afraid to say ‘I don’t

know’, there is no sort of right and wrong”,

“you don’t have to make things up just

because you think that I want you to say

something”, and “what I don’t want you to do

is to feel as though you have to answer me

and then guess an answer.”

Child is Told That it is Acceptable to Correct

the Interviewer

“Ownership” of the information. Inter-

viewers’ directions such as “if I get any of

that wrong will you tell me?”, “I need you to

correct me on that and put me right”,

“because it’s important I leave here with a

clear picture of what it is you’re saying to

me”, “it’s really important that you correct

me on that to make sure that I’ve got the cor-

rect understanding of what you’re saying”

and “because it’s important that I get things

right as well” suggested that the information

somehow “belongs” to the interviewer rather

than residing with the child or with the infor-

mation itself.

836 S. J. Kr€ahenb€uhl et al.

Direction. Most of the direction was to sug-

gest that the child took responsibility for

alerting the interviewer when a mistake has

been made “please point it out to me”, “I

need you to correct me on that and put me

right” and “it’s OK to tell me alright.” There

were few specific phrases provided by the

interviewer to demonstrate appropriate com-

ments “just say to me ‘you know, you’ve got

that wrong’” or “just say ‘no, that’s wrong’.”

Truth and Lies

What needs to be demonstrated. The truth

and lies discussion focused on understanding

the difference between the two. There were

many occasions when the introduction to this

discussion was prefaced by contrasting truth

and lies, for example, “. . . that you are able to understand the difference between truth and

lies”, “tell me what you think I mean about

the difference between truth and lies”, “do

you know the difference?”, “can you explain

it to me?” and “so what is the difference?.”

The need to actually tell the truth was not

generally included at this stage but occurred

after an assessment of the child’s ability to

differentiate truth and lies had been made.

There was only one occasion when the inter-

viewer included the necessity of telling the

truth in the preamble to the assessment with

the words, “because it’s important that you

tell me the truth today isn’t it?.”

Responsibility (including timing). There

were two points regarding the apportioning of

responsibility for the demonstration of the

child’s understanding and agreement in

respect to truth telling. First, there was the

issue of who, according to the interviewer,

“required” the interview to take place. Sec-

ond, there was the issue of timing and how

the rapport, or specific aspects of it “had” to

be done before other parts of the interview.

Introductory explanations for including

the truth and lies discussion were presented

from the interviewer’s own perspective “I

have to do”, “I got to make sure”, “something

I have to do” and “I need to know.” Many of

these phrases imply an external pressure on

the interviewer to conduct this discussion.

This external pressure was sometimes stated

quite clearly “I need to know for the people

who view this”, “we need to make sure”, “I

just have to establish that that is the case”,

“I’m going to do a test with you” and “I need

to know or the people that may view this

need to know that you’ve got an

understanding.”

The timing of the truth and lies discussion

was also presented in a way which distanced

it from the interviewer’s own control, “first

thing we have to do before we go any fur-

ther”, “we just need to talk about before we

carry on”, “what I should have done before

we started talking was ask if you know. . .”, and “before we carry on so that you can talk

about things.”

Reassurance and appraisal. The truth and

lies discussion appeared to make some inter-

viewers feel that they would seem critical of

the child, or that they would appear not to

expect the child to have an understanding of

the difference in truth and lies. Interviewers

attempted to negate both the difficulty and

significance of the truth and lies discussion

by making statements like, “I don’t think

you’re going to have a problem”, “I think you

do [understand] because you’re clever you

said”, “I know it’s a bit of a silly question”

and “I’m sure you have a good understanding,

but what I’d like you to do is to give me an

example.”

Other Rules

Two “other” ground rules occurred in the

interviews. One was telling the child to give

as much detail as possible (as an issue sepa-

rate from interviewer “not present”) and one

was telling the child they could, and indeed

should, use whatever language was appropri-

ate in reporting their experiences.

Ground Rules Implementation 837

Justification. As well as telling the child

directly to “fill in all the detail” or “tell me as

much as you possibly can” there were also

comments to show the child that they may be

unaware of the importance of some details

“even if it’s something that seems quite small

and insignificant then still tell me”, “things

you miss out might be important to me” and

“something you don’t think that’s important,

it may well be that it is alright?.”

Acceptability. The acceptability of the type

of language that could be used was expressed

from both perspectives by the interviewer. It

was seen as a benefit for the child “you’re

allowed to use it in here with me, okay, if it

helps you to explain”, and that the child

should not to be concerned for the interviewer

“you can use any word, doesn’t matter” and

“no problem with that.”

Interviewers Use of Introductory and

Completion Comments

Preamble. When interviews contained no

“introduction” containing specific references

to the ground rules discussion, the inter-

viewers simply continued prefacing the initial

ground rule implemented with words like

“so”, “right”, “alright” or “now.” When direct

reference to the ground rules was made by the

interviewer the perspective taken was invari-

ably that of the interviewer having responsi-

bility for the subsequent discussion. The

verbs used by the interviewer to introduce the

ground rules included “explain”, “establish”,

“run through” and “to do.” Although the

interviewer generally said “I”, the occasions

when “we” was included did not reflect the

child’s direct involvement, but referred to

“us”, i.e. the police or the social worker, for

example, “we like to sort of try and establish

before we start just to make sure that you

understand . . . .” Only on two occasions did the interviewers give reasons for the ground

rules that referred to the child, and when they

did it was after a direct reference to the

ground rules with the following comments

“to make sure you understand where I’m

coming from and what sort of format is of

this interview” and “there’s a few things I

have to tell you to make sure you understand

what’s happening and what I expect from you

during the interview, and are also certain

things that you know what to expect from me

during the interview, okay?.”

Interviewers also used two indirect ways to

introduce the ground rules: these were timing

and procedural necessity. Interviewers initiated

the ground rules discussion by saying that it

was the appropriate time to do so before the

substantive part of the interview began. For

example, “before we have our chat”, “before

we carry on”, “I’m going to have a little chat

with you about things that have happened,

yeah. So. . .” or “well, before we talk about that. . .” suggesting that there was a distinction between the conversation about the ground

rules and the rest of the interview. The inter-

viewers described their own involvement in

different ways. For instance, as “something I

need to go through”, “something I need to do”

or “the other thing is I need to know.” Or inter-

viewers distanced themselves slightly by using

“we” (the police), by saying “what we need to

do”, “when we talk to people” or “we have to

make sure that the children we talk to. . . .” Alternatively, the interviewers “distanced” him

or herself from the discussion entirely and

described the discussion as, “some formal stuff

we have to do” or “the next couple of things

I’d like to do with you are standard practice. . . . ” There was one occasion when the interviewer

introduced the ground rules under an alterna-

tive guise by saying, “Right, now we are going

to play a little game.”

Completion comments. When interviewers

marked the end of the ground rules discussion

with a comment it took one of two forms.

One form was to suggest that the task was

complete and “out of the way.” For example,

by saying, “So now we’ve got that sorted

out” or “Okay. That’s all the introductions

over with. . . .” The second form did suggest

838 S. J. Kr€ahenb€uhl et al.

that the ground rules had some relevance to

the rest of the interview, but such suggestions

were made very tentatively and did not make

the relationship between the ground rules and

the ensuing interview clear. For example,

“That’s the main bit of sort of the rules that

we have amongst us in order to get this inter-

view going along nicely” or “Right, that’s

easy isn’t it, we can do that. Brilliant” or,

“Okay, so that’s what we’re going to do for a

little while now is that all right? Yeah?.”

Later Reference to Ground Rules

Later references to the ground rules were pro-

vided as independent statements, i.e. the state-

ment made no reference to the previous

discussion of the rule, but was said as if the

initial ground rules discussion had not hap-

pened. For example, one interviewer said

“. . .what I would like you to do is to tell me in as much detail as you can about that, that

first weekend” and another “So if there’s any-

thing I’ve got wrong, then you need to correct

me.” To these references, the child simply

gave his or her assent and the interview con-

tinued without any further discussion or com-

ment from either the interviewer or the child.

The only occasion when telling the truth was

referred to later in the interview was when

one interviewer did so in the form of a ques-

tion at the end of the questioning stage. The

interviewer said, “Can I just ask you, did you

tell me the truth throughout the interview?” to

which the child replied “I told you the truth.”

On two occasions, there was reference to

a discussion having taken place earlier in the

interview. One was only a minimal reminder

“And, as I said, remember, I wasn’t there

so. . .”, the other was more extensive, “. . . you know remember when I said at the begin-

ning we need to do some things in a bit more

detail. This is obviously some of the things

we need to go into. Now can you remember

the first time something happened?.”

Discussion

We found that, contrary to interview protocol

guidance and our predictions based on that

guidance, not all the ground rules were

included in the rapport stage of the interview.

Rather, our results correspond with previous

research that has demonstrated a considerable

discrepancy between theory and implementa-

tion of investigative interviewing protocol

guidance (Cederborg et al., 2000; Hershko-

witz & Elul, 1999; Powell & Hughes-

Scholes, 2009; Thoresen et al., 2006; West-

cott & Kynan, 2006).

The only ground rule that was usually

included in the rapport stage was the truth and

lies discussion. We suggest that this may be

because even though there is no legal require-

ment in England and Wales for an oath to be

administered to a child, the truth and lies dis-

cussion can demonstrate to the court that a

child has an understanding of truth and lies,

and is aware of the importance of telling the

truth during an interview. Therefore, the truth

and lies discussion may be more consistently

included as a result of concerns regarding the

admissibility of the interview in subsequent

legal proceedings. As expected, the truth and

lies discussion tended to be included towards

the end of the rapport stage.

In contrast to the ABE guidance (Crown

Prosecution Service, 2011; Home Office,

2002, 2007) and our predictions, when

ground rules were included concrete exam-

ples were seldom used, and a child rarely had

the opportunity to demonstrate their under-

standing of the rules. Ground rules like

reminding the child that the interviewer was

not present, and correcting an interviewer’s

misunderstanding were included in fewer

than half of the interviews, were rarely prac-

tised, and if assessed, were done so by a ques-

tion rather than with an example. In other

words, children usually had only a passive

role in the rapport phase, and with the excep-

tion of the truth and lies discussion, children

were only expected to listen to the other

ground rules as the interviewer described

them. The truth and lies discussion took a dif-

ferent form from the other ground rule pre-

sentations, because it was the most frequently

included ground rule, it was initially pre-

sented as a statement, and the child’s

Ground Rules Implementation 839

understanding was almost always assessed

with practice that referred to either to the peo-

ple present or to other people.

Contrary to our expectations, interviewers

very rarely reiterated the ground rules later in

an interview. When the rules were presented

this was almost exclusively in the rapport

stage of the interview.

The qualitative analysis identified two

unexpected findings. The first of these related

to how responsibility during the interview

was apportioned. Throughout the ground

rules discussion there were many references

to the child’s responsibility for ensuring the

quality of the information, even though any

interview is an interaction that will be influ-

enced by both parties. For example, the

request to provide as much detail as possible

was not only presented in a way that placed

the entire responsibility for doing this on the

child, but the request was also presented in a

way that separated the child and the inter-

viewer into “you” and “us.” The same sense

of responsibility and differentiation was also

found in relation to the ground rules about

not understanding and about the interviewer

making a mistake. Placing all the responsibil-

ity on the child was not only inappropriate in

the context of an interview led by an adult

interviewer, but might make the interview

seem even more daunting to a child. With

rare exceptions, there was little attempt by

interviewers to suggest that the interview was

a shared responsibility, or that both the inter-

viewer and the child needed to work together

to facilitate the interview.

The second unexpected finding was how of

the requirement to include the ground rules was

often explained as an external requirement, i.e.

that going through the ground rules was some-

thing that the interviewer was required to do at

the behest of others before the actual interview

could proceed. This sense that the ground rules

were a separate issue was further emphasized

when interviewers made comments suggesting

that there was a difference between the ground

rules and the remainder of the interview. Such

a separation may not have helped children real-

ize that the ground rules applied to the whole of

the interview, especially as ground rules were

rarely repeated later in the interview. Merely

providing ground rules does not necessarily

enhance a child’s conversational behaviour

(Beuscher & Roebers, 2005; Blades et al.,

2003; Ellis et al., 2003; Waterman et al., 2004)

and therefore the behaviour of the interviewers

in making the ground rules appear as a separate

part of the interview may have made them even

less effective.

This study has demonstrated that ground

rule implementation is not being conducted

fully, nor in the way required by the ABE

interviewing protocols (Crown Prosecution

Service, 2011; Home Office, 2002, 2007). In

addition we suggest that there may be more

subtle problems with the way that ground

rules are presented, which could affect a

child’s ability to realize that the rules apply

throughout the interview.

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by a British Academy grant [grant number SG090216]. Permission to use the transcript and data material was kindly provided by The Open University.

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