Code of Conduct for Criminal Work

When carrying out precognition of witnesses, whether personally, through directly employed staff, or through external precognition agents, the nominated solicitor or instructing solicitor is responsible for the manner in which contact is made with the witnesses and the manner in which the witnesses are actually precognosced.  In particular, it is the duty of the solicitor to ensure that any matters associated with the witness of which he is aware which would affect the taking of the precognition or the mode of contact, such as age, disability or other vulnerable status, are taken into account by him and communicated to any precognition agent.

Guidance Note

When precognoscing witnesses, a solicitor has responsibility to ensure that this is done in a way which is as sympathetic as possible to the needs of the witness.  A solicitor does not discharge this responsibility simply by passing to a precognition agent a copy of the list of witnesses and asking the precognition agent to commence precognoscing them.  Where the solicitor is aware of peculiarities of the witnesses which would affect the way in which they ought to be contacted or the way in which they should be precognosced, such as that they are children, that they are disabled in some way or anything else, the solicitor has a duty to ensure that the precognition agent is equipped with enough information about the case to carry out the precognition work properly.  A solicitor who fails to ensure that the precognition agent is aware of such sensitive information which is known to the solicitor does not thereafter avoid responsibility for distress or inconvenience etc. which is caused to the witness by a failure to observe the particular characteristics of the witness.