The victim was four years old at the time of the incident. She was five by the time charges were laid and statements drawn up from all and sundry. The perp broke bail and she was six by the time he was brought back for trial. He was bailed a second time (where's the justice in that?) and broke bail again. She's now nine, and her case is still to be heard in court. Even if her case is expedited and the perp sent to jail tomorrow to serve twenty years (which is unlikely) the damage is already done. Now she has school friends who will hear about it. Now she is old enough to understand the emotional impact of what happened to her, which she wasn't at age four. For five years she has been waiting for closure, for five years her mother and brother have been waiting for closure. For five years this has been an open wound, perhaps sometimes forgotten, but never actually closed.
Not to mention the fact that he will probably not go to jail for twenty years. She had disturbed sleep before this event anyway, so the nightmares she has now cannot be blamed on this one incident. She was only four anyway, so her recall will not be complete. She functions normally now at school and at home with no apparent ill effects - so far. Let me just say that I would not be looking forward to the wedding night flashbacks, if I were her.
As for the fact that he has prior convictions, let us not hold that against him. He is probably a victim of society, suffers from low self-esteem and maybe was even abused himself as a child. He probably has been unable to build a sense of self-worth due to his lack of skills which mean that he has been unable to find steady work. Probably it is his social worker's fault that he has been unable to keep any of the jobs he has been given for longer than a few months. Since we, as a society, have created him the way he is, it would be unfair and unreasonable of us to punish him for acting out of his psychological pain. He will probably get a suspended sentence, if enough evidence is even found to get a conviction.
And here is the real hell of it. The conviction which I sincerely believe he deserves, depends on the word of a four year old child. There was no physical evidence to support her claims and when it comes to the word of a four year old girl against the word of a grown man, I find it hard to believe that the court will take her claim of "he did it" over his "no I didn't".
Bitter much? Hell, yeah.
