Child lied about abuser, mother tells court
(CNS): The mother of a ten-year-old girl who claims the woman’s former boyfriend sexually abused her said she believes her daughter has lied about who the perpetrator of the abuse was. In a harrowing sexual assault case against a West Bay man, who is accused of abusing the little girl from when she was seven years old, the child’s mother gave evidence for the crown. However, she told the court that she believed the child had been molested, not by her ex-lover as the crown claims, but by other men in the family who had also abused her when she was a child.
The man on trial, who is accused of sexually assaulting the child for a year, has denied the allegations and claims that the young child made up the accusations against him because she wanted to live with her father. The mother appeared to agree with those sentiments when she took to the witness stand Wednesday.
She claimed, for the first time since she gave her original statement to police, that her daughter had immediately recanted allegations made to a social worker against her ex-boyfriend. The mother also claimed that before the child was removed from her care and afterwards, during visits to her home after the investigation began, the girl had told her that it was other people in the extended family who had abused her.
She further claimed that before the child was taken away, they had discussed what she should do if she was molested.
The local woman told the court that her daughter had said that she was abused by her mother’s brother (the child’s uncle) and by a cousin who lived at the child’s grandmother’s house. The mother said that her eldest son, the little girl’s brother, had masturbated in front of the child on two occasions, as he has serious mental health problems and frequently does that in front of family members. The woman also revealed a history of sexual abuse in the family, saying that she had also been sexually abused when she was child by the same brother who she believes assaulted her youngest daughter.
The court heard that the mother has five other children besides the child making the allegations of abuse against her boyfriend and every one of them had been taken into care at some point because of the sexual abuse going on in the extended family.
But the woman claimed that she did not believe that her former boyfriend had ever abused her youngest daughter.
She said she believed the child had lied because she was manipulative and wanted to get her own way. She said the child’s father (her husband) had left and the daughter blamed her for it, and that she constantly cried and wanted to go live with him.
The mother said that the man accused of abusing the child was strict but he treated the little girl like his own daughter and had tried to protect her from the other men in the family who he believed were abusing her. She said that her former boyfriend had raised his concerns that he suspected the child was being molested when she visited her grandmother by the uncles and cousins. He was concerned, too, that she was being influenced by much older children and being allowed to watch films of a sexual nature.
The case continues.
