The girl forced to wait two years for justice after a sexual assault

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/05/girl-forced-wait-two-years-justice-sexual-assault

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Lawyers say cuts to police and the CPS mean long delays in youth courts are no longer unusual

More than two years had passed by the time the teenager stood, trembling and tearful, in the witness box at Manchester youth court. Raising her shaking right hand, the girl swore a simple six-word oath recited by children in courts across England and Wales: “I promise to tell the truth.”

The girl then cried her way through an hour of testimony about the night she was sexually assaulted by a close friend, who sat across the courtroom from her. It was the first time she had seen him since the night two summers ago when he had sexually assaulted her as she slept.

She was 16 when it happened, she explained, and had been at the boy’s house for a sleepover with another male friend. They had chatted, smoked cannabis and relaxed before she fell asleep on a beanbag between the two boys. But when she woke up, she felt “strange”, she said. She had been molested in her sleep.

In cross-examination, the girl broke down. She was questioned about smoking cannabis, about “behavioural issues” at school, how many blankets were on the beanbag, and whether she had heard rumours at the time about the boy touching other girls inappropriately. The suggestion, said the defendant’s barrister, Tim Hopley, was that she had simply “made it all up”.

It was August 2019 and the victim was being questioned about the minutiae of a night in July 2017 that she was desperate to forget. She had told her mother and the police about the assault straight away. She was taking medication for her mental health, the court was told, and she spoke slowly with long, tearful pauses.

After a three-day trial, the district judge James Hatton found the boy guilty of sexual assault. He was given a supervised community order, told to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work, pay £280 costs to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and a £20 victim surcharge.

Barristers said a two-year delay in bringing a case to trial was no longer unusual for some offences heard in the youth court, despite official guidelines requiring justice to be done as quickly as possible. The judiciary’s youth courts handbook states: “Justice delayed may be justice denied in respect of all parties, not just the child or young person.”

Only two trials were heard at Manchester youth court in the month covered by the Guardian; both cases had taken more than two years to get from arrest to trial. Cuts to the police and CPS are contributing to the delays, according to barristers who specialise in youth justice, with fewer officers and lawyers to investigate offences.

The delays are particularly problematic when it comes to children’s ability to remember key details. Research has found that younger children remember fewer details than older children and adults, potentially putting them at a huge disadvantage when giving testimony in court.