Pre-Trial Therapy

Pre-trial therapy is therapeutic support provided to a victim or witness between the reporting of a criminal allegation and the conclusion of related criminal proceedings.

I will not seek to identify the specific offence or investigate the alleged crime. The purpose of pre-trial therapy is therapeutic, not investigative. If you wish to talk about your experience(s), you will not be prevented from doing so. However, if you provide new information relating to the allegation under investigation or make a new disclosure, it may need to be recorded and, depending on the circumstances, shared.

Therapy records and the criminal justice process

When therapy occurs during an ongoing criminal investigation or proceedings, therapy records may, in certain circumstances, become relevant to the criminal justice process.

As part of the criminal justice process, the police or the Crown Prosecution Service may ask for your consent to disclose my therapy records or session notes. I will discuss this with you and seek your consent before sharing any information. If you do not consent, the Crown Court may, in some circumstances, require disclosure by issuing a court order. If this happens, I will keep you informed wherever legally possible.

Therapeutic boundaries

I will not deliberately attempt to recover forgotten memories, use leading or suggestive questions, repeatedly rehearse the alleged incident, or do anything that could be interpreted as coaching or influencing your evidence.

These boundaries do not mean that you cannot talk about the impact of your experiences. The focus of therapy remains your emotional well-being, recovery and therapeutic needs.