Overview
Witness Statements are a central part of proceedings, and something which both parties will rely on to present their case. Usually, short Witness Statements will accompany an Application, where as much longer witness statements with exhibits will form part of the evidence at a Trial or Final Hearing.
Witness Statements are covered under Part 32 of the Civil Procedure Rules, and the Practice Directions are also very helpful.
Formatting
There is generally a standard way to format a Witness Statement.
- At the very top of the document it will contain information about the case, such as the parties and the claim number
- Usually there will be an introductory statement such as “I John Smith of A Street London, will say as follows:”
- After this will be a series of Headings
- It is then advised to use paragraph numbers from there on. Numbers are better than letters or Roman numerals, as often a Witness Statement can have lots of paragraphs.
- The end of the Witness Statement will contain a Statement of Truth (an affidavit), a signature and the date.
In High Court claims, there is requirement under Practice Direction 57AC for a Solicitor to sign that the witness statement is compliant with that Practice Direction. This is to stop Witness Statements becoming full of irrelevant information, commentary and so forth.
For an example of Witness Statement formatting, here is an example of the first page of Prince Harry’s Witness Statement:
And here is an example of the last page:
Content of a Witness Statement
An obvious factor of Witness Statement is that it must contain the truth. If you lie in a Witness Statement, you are likely to face Contempt Proceedings, which will result in a fine and/or imprisonment.
Another factor of a Witness Statement is it needs to be factual. It is there to assist the Court understand the facts. It cannot have running commentary, commentary of the evidence, or opinions. Solicitors tend to be the worst for proffering their (often irrelevant) opinions in Witness Statements.
Exhibits
Whilst it is possible to write a Witness Statement based purely on ‘knowledge’, it is generally the case that exhibits will be required to demonstrate what is being said.
For example, if John Smith is writing a Witness Statement he might say: “I wrote to person X on Y, I exhibit that letter at [JS1].” JS1 would be an exhibit of the letter.
Often this way of providing exhibits will be useful in the course of an Application. However, if you are going to Trial or Final Hearing, there will be the exercise of Disclosure. In this case, having given Disclosure JS1 would be likely to be within the documents already disclosed – so adding JS1 would likely duplicate the documents. So usually, Trial/Final Hearing Witness Statements won’t have JS1, but instead a reference to a bundle, such as [B2/236], meaning Bundle B2, Page 236.
Non-Compliant Witness Statements
Witness Statements which are not compliant, offer commentary, opinion, and so forth can have paragraphs – or even the entire Witness Statement struck out! So it is important to ensure that Witness Statements are compliant.
Likewise, falsities, lies and exaggerations in Witness Statements come with severe penalties – including Contempt of Court proceedings – so be very careful!