‘At the end of the day, the clinician is in no different position from members of juries who must seek independent evidence to corroborate the authenticity of witnesses’ evidence … The consequences of drawing premature conclusions, both for the client and significant others in the client's life, are likely to be farreaching and irreversible.’ (Thomson, 1995b:104)

‘Vulnerable witnesses may be the victims of negative ideologies and unhelpful societal assumptions, so that an effective strategy involves challenging the culture as well as the law.’ (Birch, 2000:224)

‘The main challenge for those of us who work with survivors of child sexual assault is to ensure that our practices do not compromise either the legal or therapeutic process. We must be aware of the problems inherent in working with memory and in particular, guard against contaminating the process of recall.’ (Broughton, 1995:95).

Introduction

Psychologists have paid very little attention to the influence of individual differences in personality and their effects on identification (Hosch, 1994:328). Hosch attributes this lack of research to the facts that: (a) psycholegal researchers in the field have a background in social or cognitive psychology; and (b) the acceptance by many psychologists of Wells' (1978) argument and the focusing on system rather than on estimator variables in order to increase the practical usefulness of their work (p. 328). Let us, therefore, take a close look at the empirical literature on witness personality, demographic and other characteristics and their relationship with accuracy of eyewitness memory.