6 - Corroboration: Plausibility Embedded in Evidentiary Standards

Summary

Chapter 6 takes up the rule of corroboration to illustrate the intertwining of social perceptions of plausible crime scenarios with formal evidentiary standards and recounts how the rule operated in constructing social and cultural credibility (or its absence). The requirement of corroboration in sex offence cases was not a neutral evidentiary tool but, rather, a tool for signifying ‘others’, those belonging to a category of social players who should not be believed. In the colonial context of Mandate Palestine, these ‘others’ were non-English, especially non-English children.