At a crossroads? Where to now for the intermediary role in the criminal justice process?
Where: Deakin Downtown, Level 12, Tower 2 – 727 Collins Street, Docklands, VIC, AU, 3008
When: 26 August 2025, 4:30pm – 6:30pm
Please register here to attend in person or online via Zoom.
The Centre for Law as Protection is delighted to invite you to join us in-person or online for a cross-industry discussion on the present and future of intermediaries in criminal proceedings.
More than 25 years have passed since the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act transformed how vulnerable witnesses are supported in the criminal justice system of England and Wales. Among its most distinctive innovations was the introduction of the ‘intermediary’—a communication specialist tasked with bridging the gap between vulnerable witnesses and legal professionals.
In recent years, variants of the intermediary role have been introduced in several other jurisdictions, including Australia and New Zealand. In Victoria, the Victorian Intermediary Program has been operating since 2018. It is housed within the Department of Justice and Community Safety. Principally, the objective of this program is two fold – to reduce trauma experienced by victims and promote greater access to justice.
The intermediary role has not only facilitated more effective communication, but has also driven a profound cultural shift in how vulnerable witnesses are accommodated in the criminal process. Yet, its evolution has not been without resistance and aspects of the role remain contested. Questions remain about the ability of traditional adversarial criminal procedure to embrace a role that is placed between the advocate and the witness.
In this talk, Dr John Taggart invites us to reflect critically on the place of the intermediary today, and where it may be headed in the future.
About the Speaker:
Dr John Taggart is Lecturer in Law and Director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Queen’s University Belfast. A qualified barrister in both Northern Ireland and in England and Wales, Dr Taggart brings practitioner experience to his academic research, which focuses on criminal process, special measures in court, and the socio-legal dimensions of justice. His latest monograph, The Intermediary in the Criminal Justice System (Routledge, 2025), offers a groundbreaking analysis of the intermediary’s role and its implications for adversarial justice.