# How is historical child abuse proved?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 15, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993 "2013-11-15T16:53:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/21 "2013-11-17T03:40:32Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I guess theres no Statute of limitations in Britain?
>
> Case like this are very difficult to defend against 15,20 or 30 years later. Thats why many countries have the Statute of limitations.
And, I believe that the general understanding is that sex offenders generally do not commit one crime and then quit. It’s generally not a youthful indiscretion kind of thing like when college kids commit stupid pranks and vandalize the dean’s office or steal all the erasers from Jones Hall and then they grow up and get a life. They abuse many times over several years or decades and are finally caught. So if someone is accused of abusing someone 30 years ago, if they’re a real perv, there’s probably a more recent case the police can find to nail the guy with.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/22 "2013-11-17T03:43:12Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I guess theres no Statute of limitations in Britain?
>
> Case like this are very difficult to defend against 15,20 or 30 years later. Thats why many countries have the Statute of limitations.
In **England and Wales** at common law the principle was that _no lapse bars the King_. There are still no statute of limitation for indictable offences ( there is a six month period for summery offences, magistrate court act 1980 , ss127).
A long delayed prosecution may in proper circumstances be stopped as an abuse of process.
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### Author:  [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2013, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/23 "2013-11-17T07:01:07Z")
For the 520 charges -
It’s not hard for me to believe.
520 / 3 victims is 175 charges each.
Divide be 10 years, and that’s only 17 a year.
Let’s say
1. He raped me twice the day he kidnapped me
2. Then again the next day
3. Then four times the following weekend
The individual instances will add up pretty quickly
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/24 "2013-11-17T19:10:19Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Who remembers anything about that nasty but relatively short-lived fad?
At the full on hysteria level it probably lasted 15 years (1976-1990 or so), but it has been around at least since Freud blamed a variety of ills on childhood sexual abuse. It is also, unfortunately, still around. It’s not like the therapists who were making these bogus diagnoses just suddenly changed their minds. They just scaled back their claims so they were more difficult to laugh off.
So the days when a therapist could convince a patient that she was abused for ten years and gave birth to babies that were sacrificed to Satan in a secret cult in a basement and that she repressed this somehow are thankfully over. However there are still plenty of therapists who are convinced that any number of innocuous character traits _must_ be signs of sexual abuse as a child, probably by a parent or sibling, and if the person doesn’t remember any such thing ever happening they _must_ have repressed it. And they are still ruining lives by convincing people to believe that completely innocent people abused them, or that all their ills can be blamed on some psychic damage as a child from which they will never truly recover, or that any self-doubts or changes in mood or interactions with others are sure signs of having multiple different personalities all fighting for control over their bodies.
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> The entire “recovered memory” industry promptly crashed, and was pretty much never heard of again.
If only.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/25 "2013-11-17T19:20:06Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> In **England and Wales** …There are still no statute of limitation for indictable offences ( there is a six month period for summery offences, magistrate court act 1980 , ss127).
> …
If you are convicted of a summery offence, do you get deported to Florida?
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### Author:  [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/26 "2013-11-18T06:27:45Z")
Laws changed, probably statutes of limitations as well. In several states in the US today, the age of consent is 12 years old.
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### Author:  [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/27 "2013-11-18T07:13:00Z")
> [@Superhal](#):
>
> Laws changed, probably statutes of limitations as well. In several states in the US today, the age of consent is 12 years old.
Not to my knowledge. Certainly used to be the case in some States, but I can find no evidence for less than 14 and most seem to be 15-18. Of course there is the possibility of emancipation, but that is not Age of Consent.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/28 "2013-11-18T14:26:54Z")
> [@Superhal](#):
>
> Laws changed, probably statutes of limitations as well. In several states in the US today, the age of consent is 12 years old.
I think you are confusing things. For instance in my state the age of consent is 16. But we have a so called Romeo and Juliet provision in the statute. So the absolute AoC is 12 depending on the age difference. But the actual AoC is still 16.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/29 "2013-11-18T19:50:08Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> “I suspect” is not a good basis for a GQ answer. I am a detective in a SVU unit. I can tell you that cases must be stronger than that to bring an indictment let alone a conviction.
OTOH, consider the Duke Lacrosse case.
Once the prosecutor had it in for these guys - if they hadn’t been spoiled rich kids whose daddies could afford good lawyers and fancy detectives, if this had been some house party in the poor side of town - what are the odds these kids would have had the wherewithall to prove the “evidence” was flawed, the timeline was questionable, the identification was flawed, and pertinent medical tests redacted? How much money for private investigators does a public defender get?
The nightmare of every sexually active male has to be that the girl has buyer’s remorse in the morning and makes up a story. Since sex happened and there’s only two people to tell whether anyone said “no”, both motivated to say the opposite, it falls to circumstantial evidence. If by bad luck the evidence can be twisted to make the person look guilty, nowadays the guy is the one who is screwed (afterwards).
Look just how many falws there had to be in the Duke case before the prosecution had to give up.
Not that I’m taking the man’s side all the time. The sad fact is that when it boils down to two people alone in a room, unless there are bruises and other evidence, I bet a lot of cases are not reported because the woman feels she won’t be believed (or worries about her “reputation”); and more don’t make it to charges because the circumstances are nothing but “he-said-she-said”.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/30 "2013-11-18T23:18:32Z")
> [@md2000](#):
>
> OTOH, consider the Duke Lacrosse case.
> Once the prosecutor had it in for these guys - if they hadn’t been spoiled rich kids whose daddies could afford good lawyers and fancy detectives, if this had been some house party in the poor side of town - what are the odds these kids would have had the wherewithall to prove the “evidence” was flawed, the timeline was questionable, the identification was flawed, and pertinent medical tests redacted? How much money for private investigators does a public defender get?
>
> The nightmare of every sexually active male has to be that the girl has buyer’s remorse in the morning and makes up a story. Since sex happened and there’s only two people to tell whether anyone said “no”, both motivated to say the opposite, it falls to circumstantial evidence. If by bad luck the evidence can be twisted to make the person look guilty, nowadays the guy is the one who is screwed (afterwards).
>
> Look just how many falws there had to be in the Duke case before the prosecution had to give up.
>
> Not that I’m taking the man’s side all the time. The sad fact is that when it boils down to two people alone in a room, unless there are bruises and other evidence, I bet a lot of cases are not reported because the woman feels she won’t be believed (or worries about her “reputation”); and more don’t make it to charges because the circumstances are nothing but “he-said-she-said”.
This is GQ. The answers are about how the process and laws are set up. The fact that someone was able to corrupt the process through illegal means does not negate the GQ answer (the prosecutor was disbarred and convicted of a crime). The effectiveness of certain statutes or how they may have been abused in certain cases is probably best for a thread in a different forum.
Your google-fu can come up with examples of sexual assault cases that went forward with flimsy evidence beyond the victim’s statement. I have personal experience of many cases that do not go forward due to lack of evidence, most recently last week. Sexual assaults can be the hardest types of cases to get a conviction because sometimes the evidence is just not there to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/31 "2013-11-18T23:22:38Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> I think you are confusing things. For instance in my state the age of consent is 16. But we have a so called Romeo and Juliet provision in the statute. So the absolute AoC is 12 depending on the age difference. But the actual AoC is still 16.
Rereading that and I put that the wrong way. In my state, under 13 no consent can be given. Between 13 and 15.99999 consent can be given if the other party is less than 4 years older. 16 is the age of consent. However it is 18 if it is a relative, teacher or someone in a position of authority over the teen.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/32 "2013-11-18T23:39:30Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> Rereading that and I put that the wrong way. In my state, under 13 no consent can be given. Between 13 and 15.99999 consent can be given if the other party is less than 4 years older. 16 is the age of consent. However it is 18 if it is a relative, teacher or someone in a position of authority over the teen.
One thing that piques my curiosity is how they define “position of authority”. I’m guessing that this includes only people with actual, legal _in loco parentis_ authority rather than a broad definition. Can a 17 year old roleplaying game enthusiast consent to sex with their 19 year old Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master? Is Uncle Bill automatically considered a person of authority solely because he’s mom’s brother or is some explicit or implied (e.g. intentionally leaving your child with him) parental delegation of authority required before this becomes so?
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/33 "2013-11-18T23:41:44Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> You answered a slightly different question than what I asked, saying that you doubted they could have convicted Castro of a lot of the counts. (Well, I wondering about that too.) But what I really was asking was: How did the investigators come up with that long list of specific charges in the first place? And how specific must those charges have been, to have come up with so many distinct counts? Like, did they somehow list each specific calendar date on which a rape allegedly happened? Do you, as an SVU investigator, have any ideas (based on your general knowledge of this stuff) how they would have come up with that?
>
> (ETA: I confess, I didn’t actually go and read the charges, although I believe the entire indictment has been posted on line. It’s hundreds of pages long! I’m hoping **Loach** can give some sort of generic summary answer.)
I’ll give this a shot. But just know I have no first hand knowledge of Ohio law and I have not read the indictment. Some things confuse me. For instance 512 of the counts are for kidnapping. I have no idea what criteria they used to separate one count from the other. So I can’t guess why it was 512 separate counts and not 3 long counts. There may be Ohio case law that governs that.
As for the sexual assaults, yes they would have to be specific. But the charges don’t appear in a vacuum. There is overwhelming evidence that kidnapping, torture and rape occurred over a long period. That is all part of the evidence for each count. Then it would take the victim’s testimony to narrow it down. They would have to give dates or at least approximate dates and some other specifics. I suspect that some of the counts the victims were very clear about. I would guess that the case for certain counts was less clear. I don’t think that they worried too much about that. The case was solid. There was no way he was getting less than life. A month before the indictment Castro’s attorney said the many of the charges were indisputable. From the beginning they were working at taking the death penalty off the table, not professing innocence.
I’m sorry that I don’t feel like reading through over 500 pages of indictment on a dead guy who plead guilty.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/34 "2013-11-18T23:55:12Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> One thing that piques my curiosity is how they define “position of authority”. I’m guessing that this includes only people with actual, legal _in loco parentis_ authority rather than a broad definition. Can a 17 year old roleplaying game enthusiast consent to sex with their 19 year old Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master? Is Uncle Bill automatically considered a person of authority solely because he’s mom’s brother or is some explicit or implied (e.g. intentionally leaving your child with him) parental delegation of authority required before this becomes so?
In the statute it is written more specifically than just position of authority. I was just using short hand.
As per the statute:
\*The actor is related to the victim by blood or affinity to the third degree, or
The actor has supervisory or disciplinary power over the victim by virtue of the actor’s legal, professional, or occupational status, or
The actor is a resource family parent, a guardian, or stands in loco parentis within the household;\*
So in my state Uncle Bill is guilty because of blood or affinity (third degree is great-grandchild, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle or great-grandparent). Cousin is a fourth degree of consanguinity and does not count under this statute. Which is good because cousins can legally marry here.
I really doubt the dungeon master is going to pass muster as having real disciplinary power.
Of course this is for NJ. Most states have similar laws but will differ in significant ways.
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### Author:  [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/35 "2013-11-19T04:59:36Z")
> [@Pjen](#):
>
> Not to my knowledge. Certainly used to be the case in some States, but I can find no evidence for less than 14 and most seem to be 15-18. Of course there is the possibility of emancipation, but that is not Age of Consent.
> [@Loach](#):
>
> I think you are confusing things. For instance in my state the age of consent is 16. But we have a so called Romeo and Juliet provision in the statute. So the absolute AoC is 12 depending on the age difference. But the actual AoC is still 16.
Hawaii and Kentucky. Kentucky needs parental consent, iirc.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/36 "2013-11-19T05:04:50Z")
> [@Superhal](#):
>
> Hawaii and Kentucky. Kentucky needs parental consent, iirc.
Cite? From what I can see its 16 in both of those states.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/37 "2013-11-20T05:08:03Z")
Jerry Lee Lewis was married to his first cousin who was 13 at the time; I assume either Tennessee or Louisiana, although I assume the law has been changed since then. IIRC _Coal Miner’s Daughter_ portrayed Loretta Lynn as married at 13, but her biography in Wikipedia says she was 15. It was a different time and place than today.
But to return to the original point, if there were a requirement for evidence beyond dueling credibility, then no “recovered memory” charges would ever be laid… although to be fair, I do recall reading of a number of situations where the families were torn apart by accusations but charges were not laid precisely for lack or corroborating evidence (or expired statute of limitations, although one argument tried was the suggestion that the statute of limitations should start ticking when the memory “surfaced”). I suppose it depends on the prosecutor.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2013, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/38 "2013-11-20T05:24:56Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> This is GQ. The answers are about how the process and laws are set up. The fact that someone was able to corrupt the process through illegal means does not negate the GQ answer (the prosecutor was disbarred and convicted of a crime). The effectiveness of certain statutes or how they may have been abused in certain cases is probably best for a thread in a different forum.
>
> Your google-fu can come up with examples of sexual assault cases that went forward with flimsy evidence beyond the victim’s statement. I have personal experience of many cases that do not go forward due to lack of evidence, most recently last week. Sexual assaults can be the hardest types of cases to get a conviction because sometimes the evidence is just not there to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
But ignoring the illegality, the misconduct - there was the improper photo lineup and the lack of DNA evidence. But, there was physical evidence the “victim” had had sex recently (i.e. in the last 24 hours, bruising IIRC). I’m not arguing “bad charges happen”, yes sometimes they do; I’m discussing what criteria seem to be necessary or sufficient to bring charges.
The lack of DNA can be explained with condoms. The photo lineup, real or not, is still classic “she said”. (She was in the house with them - it would be surprising if she had not identified someone, the improper lineup just made it easy to have the ID’s excluded.)
So essentially, the “legitimate” case boiled down to “she said, they said” and yet on that evidence the prosecutor felt confident in pushing the case to trial - presumably relying on his powers of persuasion and spin to bring off a conviction. I find it hard to believe he strayed a long way from the norm of how he typically evaluated such cases for prosecution. He just happened to pick on someone(s) who could afford expensive lawyers.
I have no doubt in your situation you may err more the other direction and sadly, so guilty parties get off. Unlike theft, possession charges, DUI, etc - this sort of case is not simple nor painless to prove, and has more dire cosnequences no matter which side is believed.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2013, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/39 "2013-11-20T15:07:24Z")
> [@md2000](#):
>
> But ignoring the illegality, the misconduct - there was the improper photo lineup and the lack of DNA evidence. But, there was physical evidence the “victim” had had sex recently (i.e. in the last 24 hours, bruising IIRC). I’m not arguing “bad charges happen”, yes sometimes they do; I’m discussing what criteria seem to be necessary or sufficient to bring charges.
>
> The lack of DNA can be explained with condoms. The photo lineup, real or not, is still classic “she said”. (She was in the house with them - it would be surprising if she had not identified someone, the improper lineup just made it easy to have the ID’s excluded.)
>
> So essentially, the “legitimate” case boiled down to “she said, they said” and yet on that evidence the prosecutor felt confident in pushing the case to trial - presumably relying on his powers of persuasion and spin to bring off a conviction. I find it hard to believe he strayed a long way from the norm of how he typically evaluated such cases for prosecution. He just happened to pick on someone(s) who could afford expensive lawyers.
>
> I have no doubt in your situation you may err more the other direction and sadly, so guilty parties get off. Unlike theft, possession charges, DUI, etc - this sort of case is not simple nor painless to prove, and has more dire cosnequences no matter which side is believed.
If he didn’t stray far from the norm the case would have been thrown out during the normal course of legal proceedings. Instead he was disbarred and convicted.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-historical-child-abuse-proved/673993/40 "2013-11-20T15:15:04Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> If he didn’t stray far from the norm the case would have been thrown out during the normal course of legal proceedings. Instead he was disbarred and convicted.
So is that a regular occurrence, that the judge will toss a case if the evidence boils down to “he said-she said”? Or is it simply that most DA’s won’t let it get to court even? What level of corroborating evidence in general is needed?
(I recall there have been cases where prosecution long after the evidence is gone - a relevant data point might be the victim telling someone right afterward that they had been raped. An interesting variant on “he-said-she-said”, but I suppose not reporting it immediately deflects the accusation that the victim is simply having regrets the morning after and wants to harm the other participant.)
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