Yes! My daughter was abused by her cousin,4 years older.Shecwas 8 when it started.My mother in law thinks she should get over it and move on We no longer speak to her.Slthough the police were wonderful,our case never made it to court so......

Im so so sorry.

When I went to file the police report, they had me file it while standing at the front desk in the lobby. The whole thing. Luckily my son wasn't there. Then I had to basically chase them down to get them to follow up; I had to request the forensic interview myself. I had to chase down CPS, too, though they're taking it more seriously now that it's known the boy has done this to others.

The case against the boy will never go to court; they cited his age and the fact that he had been a victim of abuse. Until they connected all the cases (at least 5), they were content to let him just stay in his home. Finally CPS forced the issue and he's being put in a residential facility for juvenile sex offenders. The only people who might face charges are actually my son's father and his fiancé-- for child endangerment. My court case is for dependency neglect in juvenile court, basically restricting my ex's custody/visitation with our son.

In our case, the sex crimes officers from the local police dept and the county prosecutor's office did an awesome job gathering evidence and filing everything in a timely manner, by the book. They were very supportive of us, and the charges initially filed added up to a possible 60 yrs in jail. Our sons were 15, 7 weeks from turning 16, at the beginning of the abuse, and the offender was a 23 1/2 year old teacher who had taught as a part-time auxiliary staff member in schools since he was 18, even admitted he knew what he did was wrong. His lawyer filed all kinds of frivolous extensions, had our family, the police and prosecutors thoroughly investigated by a private investigator looking for dirt. Eventually the cases was pleaded down to only a few charges that could yield a maximum of 10 yrs in prison. But the clueless judge decided it was all a matter of immaturity on everyone's part, so the perp got a 3 year suspended sentence, no unsupervised contact with anyone under 16, Megan's law sex offender registry (the psycho-sexual evaluation deemed him unlikely to re-offend so he's not in an online database) and 15 yrs on parole that started in late 2011. He already violated the terms of parole twice, and he got a revision of the language of his sentence and terms of parole since they believed it wasn't clear enough and he didn't understand it.

Yeah, my opinion is many judges, parole officers, etc are basically clueless about what sexual abuse is, what it does, who it affects and just how they are affected, and the long term supports and therapies needed to recover.....

Yes!!!! I’m going through this now with my spouse and his parents and my son’s therapist! I thought by reporting to my child therapist he would report but I’ve still heard nothing from CPS! My son doesn’t understand the severity of what happened so because he doesn’t appear traumatized and didn’t disclose the abuse to his therapist everyone is acting like I’m overreacting and “destroying my family”! “Kids can be confused about sexuality and experiment” is what my father in law said but my stepson who abused my son is 10 years older than my son!!!!! I’ve felt so alone in all of this!

Yep. Judge flat out told me oh your son will be "fine" with therapy. Sure lady.... The therapist is the only one that knows the true impact of this or people who have gone through it.

That makes me furious mamabear! Fine?! That judge needs to be educated,sexual abuse can cause long term effects,look at my daughter and naive's daughter! Sexual abuse can trigger all sorts of mental Illness and substance abuse.No wonder all these perps are going free,uneducated officials.

Too many judges are woefully undereducated, and/or under-empathetic. And it's likely that they have never undergone a course of therapy of any kind; anyone who has been in therapy knows it doesn't make you "fine." Only time and hard work to learn, believe in, and practice new thinking skills can do that.

I know. I did my best to get the point across about the long lasting effects just so perp had a inclination of what damage hes caused. I dont think the judge got it but i do believe the family did.

This whole thing of people not getting the severity of it pisses me off nearly every day. My ex's family all behave as if they have done nothing wrong, as if I'm being unreasonable, as if this is no big deal. I can guarantee my ex has told everyone he knows that I'm unjustly keeping our son from him, that I'm an evil bitch (as he has called me in the past). They haven't taken the perpetrator out of Boy Scouts nor told the Boy Scouts the situation (I know from a friend that the boy wouldn't be allowed to stay in if they knew), they keep the boy around his sisters, at least one of whom he has abused (and if they think this boy who has abused at least 5 and threatened them not to tell hasn't also abused the baby who can't possibly tell they're delusional), he goes around his younger cousins. He was supposed to bbe sent to a residential facility for juvenile sex offenders over a month ago and at this point it looks like he may never go. I just want to shake all of them. Shake some sense into them. They're putting children in danger.

They asked for an overnight visit for Thanksgiving, didn't want Thanksgiving at all if it couldn't be overnight. I'm constantly amazed at their ability to surprise me with this stuff. No, I'm not allowing an overnight visit against judge's orders; you cannot be trusted. You knew the boy had abused multiple children, knew your son had severe anxiety about coming to your house, knew I was getting him in therapy, and yet you hid the boy's behavior from me to save your own ass, forcing our son to live with his abuser on weekends for months longer than he would have had you just fucking said something when you found out about the first child abused. My ex continually tells me he doesn't understand my motivations for even going to court for restricted visitation, has accused me of doing it out of spite. I just don't even know how to speak to a person like that.

Rambling anger. Sorry.

Had my ex knowingly allowed our son to live in a house with an adult who had abused children he would be in jail. But because the boy is a minor, it's "no big deal."

Today is a very angry day.

Many hugs.