There are many weaknesses and problems with the EWT used in this trial: firstly, at the first interview there was some inconsistency in the group’s descriptions of the robber (2 said he had brown hair and 2 said he had blonde hair), this shows a problem with the EWT used in the trial as clearly straight after the event (the eye witnesses memories of the event would have been the clearest as it had just happened), however as they were interviewed in a group all 4 members of the group heard what the others had to say about the event- subsequently two of the witnesses changed what they said and thus all four claimed he had blonde hair. This is a clear problem with the testimony used in the trial as as all the witnesses were interviewed at the event in a group and due to social desirability and conformity they changed their remembrance of the event- therefore what they said in court may have not been an accurate account of what they think they actually saw.
Weapon focus may also have had an effect in this case and this would have also caused a problem with the EWT used as the criminal used a weapon, and as that weapon is a threat to these people’s lives then they would have focussed on that weapon, and as a result this would have distorted what they remembered about the rest of the event (i.e. what the criminal looked like) which makes the EWT used invalid.
The police in the investigation did also lead the witnesses to a desired answer as in the third interview they showed them a picture of James Taylor (and two people said it may have been him), they then showed a line-up with James Taylor in it (and all four said it was him). This is a problem with the EWT used as the police lead the witnesses to identify James Taylor as the man who committed the crime even though they may not have originally thought it was him. Also the witnesses were shown the line-up several months after the incident of the crime and from the results of Yarmey (2004) we know that line-ups can be somewhat degrading to EWT and can affect its reliability.
We can also look to results from Loftus and Palmer (1974) to explain why the EWT that was used in this case may have been weak through the use of leading questions. Loftus and Palmer found that the phrasing of questions in an interview can have a clear effect on witnesses’ answers and therefore leading questions can affect the way in which eye-witnesses remember a real life situation- thus, the witnesses in this criminal investigation may have been exposed to leading questions which could have distorted their view of the event and made the EWT unreliable. However, this research done by Loftus and Palmer may be problematic and could not be used to support that the EWT used in this case is invalid as it was a lab experiment, and thus does not represent a real-life situation and the results of their experiment cannot be applied to real life.
There is also a case to say that the EWT used in this investigation is problematic due to the use of schemas and stereotypes. The theory suggests that we are only able to take in so much information at the scene of a crime or incident. At a later date when we are asked to provide greater detail, we rely on past experience (schemas) and prejudices (stereotypes) to fill in the gaps. We use expectations to reconstruct our memory. Thus, if the eye-witnesses used schemas or stereotypes then their testimonies may be invalid- this is backed up by research done by Bartlett, with his ‘War of the Ghosts’ study where he found that people’s schemas severely changed their remembrance of previous event. It may also be problematic to use this research to show that the EWT in this case is invalid as it wasn’t a real-life situation and the participants were only asked to recall a story and not a real-life event and thus the results may not be applicable to real-life situations.
Stress may have also affected the EWT, Clifford and Scott (1978) found that people who saw a film of a violent attack remembered fewer of the 40 items of information about the event than a control group who saw a less stressful version. As witnessing a real crime is more stressful than taking part in an experiment, memory accuracy may well be even more affected in real life.