The purpose of a witness statement in the Undercover Policing Inquiry has one of two functions.
The first is to support an application or submissions being made on a point; this is usually when the Inquiry is dealing with procedural or preliminary issues, though they are not as common there.
Witness statements can often come with exhibits, which are pieces of evidence supporting a point or claim being made in the statement, such as contemporary photos and diaries, and provide evidence of the statement’s accuracy (or simply provide context).
The second, more common variety is the evidential form, where a core participant or witness provides evidence to the Inquiry in order to meet its terms of reference. See under Witnesses for more details.
If there is more than one witness statement by an individual they are denoted by numbers, e.g. 1st Witness Statement of …, 2nd Witness Statement of …
The Inquiry usually publishes the witness statements it receives, but not always. Some are redacted for sensitive or personal information.
Though witness statements are legal documents and carry a statement of truth, the Inquiry permits public statements to be issued in the nominal or pseudonym of the person being used in the Inquiry when an anonymity order has been issued in their favour.
A protocol has been published by the Inquiry setting out how it expects witness statements to be done.