FED: Study says cross examination can amount to child abuse

AAP General News (Australia)
12-08-1998
FED: Study says cross examination can amount to child abuse

CANBERRA, Dec 8 AAP - Cross-examining child sex abuse complainants in court has led to
claims that it amounts to a form of child abuse, an Australian Institute of Criminology
research study reveals.

In a scathing indictment of the legal fraternity, Queensland University of Technology
lecturer Dr Christine Eastwood said lawyers routinely sought to confuse young witnesses, asked
them about irrelevant matters including previous sexual activity and accused them of lying.

Dr Eastwood said two and a half days of repetitive questioning drove one young woman
witness to withdraw after vomiting repeatedly in the witness box.

She said half the young women interviewed for the study, published in the Criminology
Institute "Trends and Issues" series, said they would not recommend that other victims report
sexual abuse on grounds that they had gone through hell and it was not worth it.

Dr Eastwood said there had been procedural, structural and attitudinal changes in the
criminal justice system and there was considerable scrutiny of the way the justice system
dealt with child sex abuse.

"...many children who have been sexually abused continue to suffer further unnecessary
trauma during the justice process," she said.

In her study, Dr Eastwood interviewed 12 women aged 12-17 of whom nine had been sexually
abused by a relative or family friend. Only four of the 12 cases ended with a conviction, with
six defendants acquitted at trial.

She said complainants started out genuinely believing that all they had to do was tell the
truth and the defendant would be found guilty and sent to jail. So questioning by defence
lawyers came as a major shock.

"All 11 young women who faced cross-examination at trial described the hostile questioning
as the worst ordeal of the entire process," she said.

"Based on this study it can be strongly argued that that all too often the trial
centrepiece, the cross-examination, is in itself child abuse."

A common lawyer tactic, she said, was to start questioning in a friendly manner, building
trust and confidence, then suddenly turning nasty with accusations of lying and of "wanting
it".

"This approach is far from harmless," Dr Eastwood said. "Indeed, the process of building up
the childs trust and then destroying it is a mirror image of their experiences at the hands
of the abuser."

AAP mb/kr

KEYWORD: CHILD

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