I have been watching the details of this case with a bit of enforced distance, because it is so, so gruesome.
A now 12 year-old boy has been in court with his biological parents, accusing them of sexual abuse and gross child neglect, from the time that he was 6 years of age.
The part of the trial that really got to me personally was that the parent’s defence council asked the victim in court if he’d ‘had a nice house’ to live in and had had ‘nice things’.
To which the boy replied that yes, it was a ‘fine, big house’ and his father had bought him nice toys from time to time.
As if the provision of a nice house to live in and the purchase of toys should have been enough to keep him satisfied as a young boy while the people who were supposed to protect him were systematically abusing him.
Yesterday, the father in the case – who isn’t being named to protect the identity of the child – was found guilty of raping his son.
While the boy’s mother has been acquitted of sexually abusing the child, further charges of child neglect involving an incident where he was locked into a box for over six hours, have been brought against her and will be decided in court on Monday.
I know that if you, too, are a parent reading this, you are sick to your stomach as I am.
How any human being can treat another like this is beyond me.
To enforce such suffering to an innocent and vulnerable child is beyond comprehension.
To do it when that child is your own flesh and blood, is beyond forgiveness.
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