For child sex abuse victims, court can be another place to feel unsafe
The 10-year-old girl sat at the witness stand, fiddling with a soft pom-pom ball she had found in a sewing kit. Her head down, her voice barely above a whisper, she could bring herself to look up only once — when the prosecutor asked her if the neighbor accused of molesting her when she was 6 years old was in the courtroom.
The girl glanced up at the defense table, pointed to the 63-year-old man seated there, and quickly looked down. Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Brenna Flynn gently asked the child what the abuse felt like.
“It hurted,” she said softly.
The case, heard last summer, ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision on the most serious charge, statutory rape of a child. The girl, who was on the stand for nearly three hours, did not want to testify again in a second trial.
On Oct. 31, prosecutors were forced to tell the judge they could not move forward with the case. The man accused of molesting the child was allowed to walk out of court that day.
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