Background from the Hub: Why is this paper here?
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry website's "Giving evidence as an applicant" page states that:
"The Inquiry takes a trauma-informed approach to how we gather evidence. Everyone who gives evidence to the Inquiry goes through the same process."
The SCAI's "Trauma Informed Approach" page adds:
At the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry we understand that many of our applicants have experienced significant trauma. We believe that a compassionate, empathetic, and informed approach is essential to providing the support and assistance you need. That's why we've adopted a trauma-informed approach, guided by specialist input and the NHS Education for Scotland's Trauma-Informed Justice and Skills Framework for working with victims and witnesses.
The accepted trauma-informed interview process vs. the SCAI process
The accepted trauma-informed investigative-interview approach is generally understood as a two-stage process: first, the interviewee is given an uninterrupted opportunity to provide a free narrative in their own words; second, the interviewer conducts non-leading follow-up questioning to clarify, explore and expand upon information already provided.
If you go through the SCAI process as a witness you'll find that, while the SCAI gets the first "free narrative" part of the trauma-informed approach right—the point being not to lead the interviewee or contaminate their testimony—that's where SCAI's soliciting of information ends.
There are no follow-up questions or deeper enquiring in the SCAI interview process, omitting an important opportunity to ask non-suggestive, survivor-derived questions that would make the account more complete and intelligible. This results in incoherent, rambling, and partial accounts.
How SCAI's witness process differs for staff and pupils
Former pupil statements are steered into an elicited via oral interviews from a list of basic, standardized list of questions. And then it ends, with no-follow up questions.
If you read through all the Merchiston witness statements given by former pupils and by staff, you'll notice that all of the staff and former staff statements were obviously submitted as written statements.
As a result, the differences in coherency between staff and former pupil testimonies is obvious and striking. The institution's power imbalance lives on—decades after leaving the institution.
This key research paper has been added to the site as it specifically is concerned with effective investigative interviewing of traumatised adult witnesses, explaining how the process is supposed to happen.
Nigel Parry, 21 August 2026
"Trauma narratives: recommendations for investigative interviewing", Risan, Milne, and Binder (2020)
ABSTRACT: In the investigation of a criminal event, the police may encounter witnesses or victims experiencing symptoms of being traumatized (e.g. anxiety, intrusive thoughts or avoidance of trauma-related stimuli). This may pose a challenge in investigative interviews where police interviewers aim to obtain reliable and detailed accounts. Based on previous theory and research, this theoretical paper aims to outline recommendations for police interviewers for approaching traumatized adult witnesses to facilitate communication, attend to the well-being of the individual and reach investigative aims. First, factors considered important for preparing for the interview and building rapport are presented. Then, different aspects of how to facilitate the interviewee’s account will be described with an emphasis on how police interviewers can approach emotional reactions to maintain rapport.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Patrick Risan (Department of Bachelor’s studies, Norwegian Police University College, Oslo, Norway), Rebecca Milne (Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK) and Per-Einar Binder (Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway)
TEXT FORMAT: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7901695/
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