A judge’s order to detain a teenage victim of sexual abuse overnight after she refused to give evidence against her attacker has been called ‘utterly shameful’ and ‘Dickensian’ by legal experts and child care professionals. Her ordeal has led to widespread demands for an investigation at the highest levels of the judiciary, according to The Times.
The 15 year-old girl, who had committed no crime, was locked up in a police cell for 20 hours on a judge Robert Bartfield to compel the teenager to give evidence against her attacker. When she finally appeared in front of Bradford Crown Court, her evidence lasted only 22 minutes.
The court heard how, aged 14, the teenager became pregnant by the man, who was more than twice her age. Like many victims of sexual abuse, the young girl didn’t want to give evidence against her attacker because she still had strong feelings for him. A jury on Tuesday took less than two hours to provide a unanimously guilty verdict against 32-year-old Abib Miskeen, for sexual activity with a child.
The judges decision to order the young girl to be detained at the request of police and prosecutors has, unsurprisingly, been widely criticised from victim and child welfare organisation. He made the decision after the start of the case was delayed for more than five hours and the teenager left the building after refusing to give evidence. There will now be an immediate review into the proceedings at Bradford Crown Court.
A spokesperson for the court said today: ‘It is a very unusual and exceptional step for young witnesses to be made subject to a witness warrant and held in custody in order to secure attendance at court. In this case, there was evidence called by the prosecution which the judge ruled justified the exceptional course of making such an order.While best practice dictates, and every effort is made to list cases involving vulnerable witnesses at the start of the day, in busy court centres the volume of these types of cases makes it impossible for all of them to start at 10am. While each case is different, following initial inquiries we intend to take some immediate steps to address the issues this case raises. Listing processes at Bradford Crown Court will be reviewed and amended to avoid the situation happening again where a vulnerable witness has to wait a long time at court prior to giving evidence.'
In a statement made in court at the end of evidence, Bartfield said he believed the 'interests of justice' had been served. Maybe, but the potential price of this was the emotional and mental wellbeing of a vulnerable young women at risk.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophiecullinane
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.