Eye-witness credibility reduced by students

Virginia College students are striving to shed light on the effectiveness of eye witnesses in court through their project in the BT Young Scientist Exhibition.

“The purpose of our project was to determine whether eyewitness testimony would actually be a viable source or recognition in the court,” explained Conor Sheehan on behalf of his teammates Evan Durston and Caolán Mahon.

The group showed viewers a video of a staged murder scene where the victim and the murderer were not identified.

Ten photos were then shown to the viewers who were asked to identify the victim, murderer, accomplice and those who were simply present at the scene.

These tests were conducted at different times following the video was shown, some straight away, some the following week and others over a month later.

This indicated the impact time plays on the witness's memory and their ability to describe a situation following the waiting period of today's court cases.

The test revealed the witnesses lost credibility following the more time that passed.

“We found that [eye witness testing] wasn’t that reliable,” concluded Conor.