VPRS 18232 Witness Statements [Legal Discovery/Case Management System]

Full description

This series contains the full set of unredacted witness statements of the Royal Commission into Family Violence (RCFV). The witness statements in this series were managed in the Commission's legal discovery / case management system, known as Ringtail. Each witness statement includes an export of the metadata that was stored against it within the legal discovery / case management system.

Note that some witness statements in this series are subject to an order prohibiting the publication of any information that may enable the identity of the person who has given information or evidence to the Commission to be ascertained. Witness statements that are known to be subject to an order have been flagged.

A set of redacted (blacked out) witness statements and associated attachments were published to the Commission's website during the course of the Commission. These can be found in VPRS 18244 Witness Statements and Attachments [Published].

Key information recorded for each witness statement in this series includes:
* The name of the witness.
* The date the witness statement was imported to the Commission's legal discovery / case management system.
* The date the witness statement was signed.
* The unique identifier assigned to the statement.
* A flag indicating if the statement was subject to an order prohibiting publication of any information that could identify the witness (and the text of the order if applicable).
* An export of all the metadata that was stored against the statement within the case management / legal discovery system.

Key information recorded for each attachment in this series includes:
* The nominated title of the attachment.
* The date the related witness appeared before the Commission and the name of the hearing module.
* The unique identifier assigned to the attachment.
* The simple number, combined with the witness initials, assigned to the attachment to help delineate multiple attachments related to the same witness.

Some additional information that may be of use to researchers includes:
* Not all witnesses gave a written statement (54 did not).
* Not all written statements were from witnesses who appeared before the Commission during hearings (despite being labelled 'witness statement'), but were in response to a Notice.
* Some statements are joint statements, and some joint statements were made by a combination of someone who appeared and someone who did not.
* Some witnesses appeared more than once, but made only one statement.
* Some witnesses appeared more than once and had a new statement for each day.
* Some statements were made to supplement evidence given or points raised during hearings but were not provided during hearings.
* A witness can have multiple files associated (statement and attachments) or none.

Additional information about the role of witnesses can be found Volume 1, Section 1 of the Commission's final report, VPRS 18248: 'The Royal Commission and its work'. Appendix D of Volume 1 also has more information about witnesses (their role/organization) which may be of interest.

Related series include:
* VPRS 18244 Witness Statements and Attachments [Published]. This series consists of the redacted witness statements and attachments that were publicly available during the course of the Commission.
* VPRS 18240 Legal Discovery / Case Management System Metadata Export. This series consists of a consolidated metadata export from the Commission's legal discovery / case management system.
* VPRS 18231 Legal Team Records [Administrative and Investigative Records Collection]. Used to store draft and / or unsigned versions of witness statements to allow for review by the Commission's legal and policy teams who did not have access to the Commission's case management / legal discovery system.