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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Correct me if I’m wrong, but the psychologist wasn’t working for the defense or the prosecution.
The court system dictated that since he is a minor, the judge would need the opinions of 3 independent psychologists to provide a brief evaluation before sentencing.
I am sure her report would be the most damning
[/quote]

This. She was also specifically asking questions to find out if he understood the consequences of what he'd done (asking him if he understood what death is, that Katie is not coming back) that indicate at least one element of her evaluation was competency to stand trial. She was a neutral observer, not trying to reach a conclusion because she was paid by one side or the other.

When Jaime tells his family in the last episode that he was changing his plea to guilty, I also assumed that was an indication that Briony (and the other people who evaluated Jaime) had likely reported that he was competent to stand trial and could understand the consequences of his actions.

Since the prosecution had a video of him stabbing the girl (with no provocation) and walking away, plus had testimony of another child who provided the knife (indicating the murder was premeditated), Jaime has almost no possible defenses other that mental incompetency. So I assumed he'd previously been pleading not guilty due to mental incompetency but when the psych evals came in, the judge either would not all or strongly recommended against it, so he pretty much had to switch to guilty.

So I think Briony was looking, as the audience was, for a psychological explanation that would show that Jaime didn't understand what he was doing, perhaps thought his violent actions could be undone or were not permanent, as they might be in a video game. But then she sees through the course of this conversation that he is coldly aware of what he's done, that he did it with intention, and that he would do it again. But I do think we are meant to understand she doesn't reach that conclusion until the interview we see.[/quote]
Really?
The psych reports were for the judge, not prosecution or defense?
I thought that his defense was being handled by other people and he most likely was not that aware of the severity of consequences of the legal system.
He is 13 in this series and Britain has a different system with regards to competency to stand trial in a youth court 
[/quote]

She tells Jaime in the scene that she's doing an "independent" assessment that the judge will read "in order to get an understanding of you and your understanding of the charges." She is not there to try and work up a defense for him, but to provide an expert assessment of his psychological profile for the court. And they reference at least one other expert who has already interviewed Jaime, so likely they are required to get several and the judge will look at all of them to reach a determination on his fitness for trial and whether he can legally be found guilty (in the UK, as in the US, a person who is found to be unfit cannot be found guilty if they are incapable of understanding the rightness or wrongness of their actions, or their consequences -- instead, such people are generally placed in psychiatric facilities and cannot be sent to prison).

The actress has said, though, that her character is going into this interview hopeful. She'd met with Jaime previously and they had developed a rapport, and she did sympathize with him but she has been unable to get him to speak directly to the murder. So she is still hopeful that when they do finally get to that subject, he will demonstrate something that will show perhaps that he didn't understand the consequences of his actions, or that it was an impulsive act for which he felt remorse -- anything that might demonstrate that this was anything other than a premeditated and frankly sociopathic murder of a child by another child. She is heartbroken at the end of the episode because Jaime has demonstrated, pretty unequivocally, that he understood what he was doing, knew he was taking Katie's life away, and didn't really care because his focus was on punishing her for his own hurt.

Here is a good recap of the episode that might help if you were confused about the details of the therapist interview, and a good interview with the actress who plays Briony:
https://www.vulture.com/article/adolescence-recap-episode-3-netflix.html
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/erin-doherty-adolescence-episode-3-1236344135/[/quote]

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