Improving the Credibility of Child Sexual Assault Victims in Court: The Impact of a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner

Abstract

The present study investigated the influence of a sexual assault nurse examiner's (SANE's) testimony on mock juror perceptions of a child or adolescent victim of child sexual assault. Community members (N = 252, 156 females) read a fictional criminal trial summary of a child sexual assault case in which the victim was 6 or 15 years old and the prosecution presented medical testimony from a SANE or a traditional registered nurse (RN), or did not present medical testimony. Mock jurors were more likely to render guilty verdicts when a SANE testified compared with the other two testimony conditions. In addition, pro-victim judgments (e.g., sympathy toward the victim) and negative defendant judgments (e.g., anger toward the defendant) mediated this relation. Finally, cognitive network representations of the case demonstrated that the RN and no-medical-testimony groups were similar and the SANE group was distinct from the other two conditions. We discuss these results in terms of the implications of SANE testimony in child sexual assault court cases.

How Do Nurses Keep Children Safe From Abuse and Neglect, and Does it Make a Difference? A Scoping Review

“…At other times, nurses worked directly with victims to address their physical and emotional wellbeing following sexual abuse (Bechtel et al, 2008, Golding et al, 2015, Hornor et al, 2012. For example, paediatric sexual assault nurse examiners were involved in physical assessment, referrals and court proceedings for children or adolescents (Bechtel et al, 2008, Golding et al, 2015, Hornor et al, 2012, Patterson and Campbell, 2009. Similarly, Edinburgh and Saewyc (2009) reported that nurse practitioners were involved with the longer-term needs of adolescents after sexual abuse such as crisis intervention, connecting with schools, health education and screening.…”

“…The lack of information in some cases about nurses' background other than their attendance at short training session suggests that nurse characteristics such as education, professional experience and qualifications were not considered as influential to these programs' outcomes. A clear exception was specialist paediatric sexual assault nurse examiners who needed a specific level of education to be accredited to perform their role (Golding et al, 2015).…”

“…The final way that studies evaluated the impacts of nurse interventions was through broader service measures such as the quality of nursing care (Bechtel et al, 2008, Hornor et al, 2012, service use (Sawyer et al, 2013, Sawyer et al, 2014, Zolotor et al, 2015 and judicial outcomes (Golding et al, 2015, Hornor et al, 2012, Patterson and Campbell, 2009. The ways that nurses can make a difference for children will be discussed, firstly in regards to the outcomes that directly measured abuse and neglect, followed by those that focussed on parental risk factors and child health and wellbeing outcomes.…”

Children Abuse: The Credibility of the Victim's Testimony in the Brazilian Justice

“…Goodman-Delahunty, Cossins, and O'Brien (2010), based on research carried out in Australia, found that children who are victims of sexual abuse have been forced to make vaginal and anal examinations, which certainly adds suffering and constraints which are additional to those already incurred during the abuse. Despite the distrust in relation to the children's testimony, there studies, such as Cooper, Quas, and Cleveland (2014), Golding, Lynch, Wasarhaley, and Keller (2015) and Golding, Wasarhaley, Lynch, Lippert, and Magyarics (2015) that prove that small children's testimonies are more reliable than that of adolescents. These authors explain that the presence of an external expert, usually a psychologist or medical expert, aims to determine the conditions in which the abuse occurred and assess the child's ability to separate the realityfrom fantasy.…”

“…There are also dormant questions regarding the duty of professional secrecy, which would be violated before the actuation of a specialized professional. Such objection remains present, even knowing that the criminal evidence obtained with the aid of these professionals has improved in quality and became more reliable, the child's testimony (Evans, Stolzenberg, Lee, & Lyon, 2014;Golding, Lynch, Wasarhaley, & Keller, 2015;Golding, Wasarhaley, Lynch, Lippert, &Magyarics, 2015).Considering the point of view of the Defendant and his or her defense, the insertion of a specialized professional as the determinant of the process could signify allegation of injury to the right of defense, to the extent that the accused person could not confront the victim and his or her report at the time that it is uttered, whose right is provided in Article 217 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Brazilian Penal Code does not foresee the need for special procedure for taking testimony of victims of sexual crimes, nor determines any action concerning the construction of special spaces where such procedure is done with the greatest care to save the victim from suffering.…”