[Solved] Witness Statements

Hi,

For my hearing, witness statement was 4 pages long. That was agreed between barrister and court in advance. Court thought it was excessive, but went along with it.

Mine was just list of bullet points.

Mine is at 11 pages! I was going to cut it down to 8 if I could.
I do think its excessively long but I know the other side will be writing just as much and i have so much to say and refute for my own piece of mind.
There is no reference to the limit in the order.

Just in case my first post was confusing, I didn't mean the FHDRA, as that is done and now there will be a DRA following a section 7 report.

hi,

can you try and see if its possible for cafcass officer (who is writing report) to be present at the next hearing? i ended up going to 3rd/final hearing. at 2nd hearing no agreement reached, so judge asked for cafcass officer to be at final hearing. if cafcass was at 2nd hearing, things would have been sorted out then and there most likely.

Hi CrOc

There isn’t a standard length as such, but it’s important to keep it as short as possible. Just keep to the correct format, try and keep the numbered paragraphs no longer than 6 lines, and keep it in chronological order.

As far as evidence, the correct procedure is to attach each piece of evidence with an exhibit cover sheet, but if you’re self representing you would get away with referencing it in the statement and just attaching it to the back of the statement. To reference evidence you need to give it a reference number, which is your initials plus chronological number. The first piece of evidence in your statement is number 1, the next would be 2, next 3 and so on.

The amount of evidence that can be attached should be limited to the most important... statements are a work in progress and can often take 3 or more drafts before they're ready.

Best of luck.