by Charles Fortt, Consultant on Sexual Crime and Domestic Violence

Abstract: Experts on child sexual abuse may be sought in the medical profession, psychology and in social work, including the probation service.This article offers guidelines to assist UK advocates in evaluating expertise. (Whilst victims, offenders and experts can be of either gender, for the sake of clarity feminine gender pronouns will be used for victims and masculine gender pronouns will be used for offenders and experts).

The recognition that child sexual abuse is much more common than was once supposed (see footnote 1, below) has presented professionals from all disciplines with a complex range of problems, from establishing the truth of what happened to a particular child to reducing the risk of abuse recurring.The characteristics of child sexual abuse mean that landmarks to help us avoid injustice and error are commonly not available: children are often physically and emotionally dependent upon their abusers, usually there are no independent witnesses to the abuse, and often there is no medical corroboration to establish what happened. In these circumstances misjudgments can mean that an innocent person is wrongly held responsible or that a child is left exposed to further sexual and emotional abuse.

The sexual abuse of children is an activity which may be dealt with in criminal and civil proceedings, but, perhaps uniquely, it involves a personal injury in which the victim is most likely to be perceived as being an incompetent witness (either by virtue of her age or, if an older child, as she may be ambivalent about giving evidence or even reluctant to do so). Whilst it is not necessarily any easier for an adult to give evidence of the sexual abuse she has suffered, she is at least mature enough to decide for herself whether she wishes to put herself through the ordeal, bearing in mind the desired outcome. For a child victim, however, the issues are likely to be very different. Not only has she been traumatised by the abuse itself but the remainder of her childhood development is at stake - and she is likely to remain dependent emotionally and/or physically upon the alleged or acknowledged abuser.

Research consistently shows that sexual crimes against adults and children are vastly under-reported (2), and of the small proportion that are reported a significant number are not proceeded with or result in acquittal. In the relatively small number of cases that appear before the courts it is in family proceedings that the expert witness is most likely to be called upon to throw some light on what often appears to be a murky and confusing subject.

Historically, the professionals who deal with victimised children - paediatricians, child psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers etc - have been separated by training and employing agency from those professionals who deal with offenders, mostly adults. This has tended to mean on the whole that those who deal with the aftermath of sexual crimes against children do not have much experience of dealing with the perpetrators of it. Again historically, the bizarre and repugnant nature of child sexual abuse has usually prompted the courts and the legal profession to look to psychiatry for explanations and clarification. However, since most perpetrators of sexual crime are not mentally ill and since most sexual abuse follows a rational pattern of attitudes, thinking, fantasy and behaviour (3) psychiatry is not necessarily best equipped to assist Courts to pick their way through a minefield of ignorance and prejudice.

There are a number of good books now available (4) to help practitioners in all professions who have to deal with sexual abuse and it is not proposed that this article should address the motivations and methods by which adults sexually abuse vulnerable people. However, lawyers frequently engage experts to assist in presenting their clients' cases, and to make the best of the evidence available it is important for advocates to have a rational way of evaluating their witnesses' expertise - the skilled cross-examination of a poorly chosen expert can do more to damage a case than not calling one at all.

Before giving evidence the expert will usually have prepared a report, either assessing one or more parties to the case or assessing other experts' reports. The expert's report will establish his credentials, frequently listing his formal qualifications. These are important but does the witness also state his relevant experience in the field under examination? If so, what is the nature of that experience? If the case concerns an unproven allegation of sexual assault does the expert have experience of working with people who do not admit their guilt? Experience gained from conducting psychiatric examinations in prisons or secure hospitals tends to limit a witness to determining whether the offender is mentally impaired and whether he is suitable for some form of psychiatric treatment. In most cases appearing before family proceedings courts neither of these issues is particularly relevant.

So, if the witness appears to have experience which might equip him to clarify rather than muddy the waters, how can his report inform an advocate on the level of expertise he might have? The following guidelines are based on 17 years' experience of dealing with sexual crime of all types, reading countless experts' reports and giving expert evidence in approximately 40 cases over the past four years, and are offered to assist advocates to make sense of experts' reports:

This is not an exhaustive list of features to be aware of but includes those which advocates will commonly come across, whether they recognise them or not.Whilst a sound report does not necessarily promise that an expert will perform well in the witness box, a report which scores badly on these guidelines is likely to mean that the witness will give poor evidence and be easy to discredit.

With the explosion of child sexual abuse cases in recent years experts will be called upon more often to help determine whether a child has been abused, whether a particular individual was responsible, whether a mother can protect a vulnerable child and whether a known perpetrator will offend again. At present there is no system of accreditation for experts and advocates are likely to rely on customary methods of finding them, usually it seems, by word of mouth. This approach is probably as reliable as any at the moment but familiarity with a particular expert should not prevent an advocate from assessing his effectiveness in making sense of circumstances that most people find bewildering.

REFERENCES:

Charles Fortt is an Independent Consultant on Child Sexual Abuse and acts as Consultant/Trainer to various criminal justice agencies in relation to their work with sex offenders. Formerly Principal Therapist and Clinic Manager at The Gracewell Institute in Birmingham, he has extensive experience of assessing and treating sex offenders, both in prison and in the community.

This article was originally published in Solicitors Journal and is Copyright Charles Fortt, 2001.