The Pronoun in the Witness Statement
Constable Brown is reviewing a draft witness statement typed by a junior clerk. The draft reads: 'Me and the vendor saw the man run toward the bus stop. The man, who was wearing a red shirt and carrying a black bag, he dropped something near the drain. The vendor said he had been there since 6:00 a.m. and he was acting strange. I did not see the man's face clearly because it was dark, but I am sure it was the same man I saw earlier. The vendor was standing under the awning and he shouted.' Brown knows that the statement will be read in court and that the defence will test every word. The clerk has used long sentences, changed tense, and left two pronouns with more than one possible referent. Brown has 20 minutes before the statement must be signed. He must decide what to fix, what to leave, and whether to ask the witness to clarify a point that could weaken the case.
1. Identify two ambiguous pronoun references in the draft and explain how each could mislead a reader.
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'The vendor said he had been there since 6:00 a.m. and he was acting strange.' The first 'he' could be the vendor or the man in the red shirt. A reader could conclude that the vendor had been at the spot since 6:00 a.m., or that the man had. That changes the timeline of who was where and for how long, which is exactly what the defence will attack.
'The vendor was standing under the awning and he shouted.' The 'he' is probably the vendor, but the previous sentence is about the man in the red shirt. A reader could think the man shouted. If shouting is part of the alleged offence, the wrong person is identified.
A third problem, not a pronoun, is 'Me and the vendor saw...' - 'me' should be 'I' because it is the subject. This is a grammar error, but it also weakens the statement's credibility when read aloud in court.
2. Rewrite the draft as four clear sentences that keep the witness's uncertainty and add no new facts.
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Rewrite:
- 'The vendor and I saw a man run toward the bus stop.'
- 'The man wore a red shirt and carried a black bag, and he dropped something near the drain.'
- 'The vendor said the man had been there since 6:00 a.m. and had been acting strangely.'
- 'I did not see the man's face clearly because it was dark, but I recognized him as the same man I had seen earlier; the vendor, who was standing under the awning, shouted.'
Reasoning: each sentence now has one clear actor. 'The vendor and I' replaces 'Me and the vendor'. 'The man' is repeated instead of using a floating 'he'. The uncertainty about the face is kept in the same sentence as the recognition, so the reader sees both rather than only the confident part. I did not add a description of the man's build or gait because the original does not give one.
3. Brown notices that the witness sounds more certain than the draft. What should Brown do before signing, and why?
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Brown should ask open questions and record the answers in the witness's own words: 'When you say you are sure it was the same man, what exactly do you recognize?' and 'How far away were you, and what light was there?' Then Brown should write the answer accurately, even if it weakens the statement.
Why: a statement that overstates certainty is easy to break in cross-examination. If the witness later admits she only saw the clothing, the whole statement looks unreliable. A carefully qualified statement - 'I recognized the red shirt and black bag, but not the face' - is stronger because it survives challenge and matches the evidence. Brown should not pressure the witness to sound more confident, and should not leave out the doubt to make the case look better. Accuracy is the point of the statement.