A survivor of childhood sexual abuse has won a legal battle to have her claim for criminal injuries compensation reconsidered.
Her bid was earlier rejected by a tribunal which ruled it would have expected earlier disclosure of the offending but a judge held it had erred in law.
The 39-year-old woman was subjected to abuse by a next door neighbour from the ages of eight to 12, but did not report it to police until five years ago.
In 2010 her abuser was jailed for 17 years after he was convicted of sexual offences, including the rape of two young girls, one of whom was the woman.
After reporting the abuse the woman made an application for criminal injuries compensation. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority refused to make an award.
The woman, known only as JM, appealed to a First-Tier Tribunal but a judge there rejected her challenge. However, a judge at the Court of Session in Edinburgh has now set aside the tribunal decision made in 2010 and said it should be reconsidered.
Lord Boyd of Duncansby said the tribunal judge had said she would have expected the woman to have reported the matter and sought compensation within about two years of her reaching 18.
The judge said: “Other than 18 being the age of majority there is no reason to select that age to make a disclosure any more than 16 or 20 or 30. There was no evidence before the tribunal judge which entitled her to reach that conclusion.
“On the contrary, those who have presided over trials of historical sex abuse of children are only too aware of the deep psychological and emotional trauma that surrounds such criminal activity.
“In order to carry off such abuse the victim has to be cowed or otherwise subdued into remaining silent. That is a continuing effect of the crime. Disclosure may be made years or even decades after the abuse has ended.”
Lord Boyd continued: “To suggest that this effect disappears once the child has reached adulthood is to misunderstand the pervasive nature of the trauma which victims of childhood sexual abuse invariably suffer.”
The tribunal had noted that there was evidence that the woman had told her brother about the abuse when they were children.
But Lord Boyd said: “In my opinion it is quite irrational to hold that disclosure while she was a child to a sibling who was also a child at the time and was in turn in fear of the abuser should point to the conclusion that it was reasonable to expect her to make the application within two years of her 18th birthday.”
In her compensation application the woman was asked to give reasons why it was not made before and said she ‘didn’t say anything because of fear that my neighbour would kill my parents and I would have to live with him forever.”
She said he had scarred her for life and feared that he may have also abused others.
She said: “I feel guilty I couldn’t come forward before, as it was too hard to talk about it.”
Lord Boyd said it was accepted that there was no direct medical evidence before the tribunal but he added: “I have to say that I find that mildly astonishing in a case such as this where there were clear indications of psychological trauma.”
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-10-29 21:36:532013-10-29 21:36:53Int’l SOL progress!!
Rep. Rick Saccone (R-Allegheny) sponsored the bill, titled The National Motto Display Act. He says it’s important that schools display the words “In God We Trust,” as the phrase is closely connected to Pennsylvania history. Former Pennsylvania Gov. James Pollack is reportedly responsible for putting the phrase on coins while serving as the director of the United States Mint about 150 years ago, according to local outlet WHTM-TV. The phrase was adopted as a national motto in 1956.
The measure would require schools to present the words on a plaque or through student artwork, according to the outlet.
“It’s passive exposure,” Saccone told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “They don’t have to look at it because if it’s on the cafeteria wall or if it’s over the front door they can look at it or don’t have to look at it. Why would we not celebrate our national motto? We can have witches on brooms in schools, we can have Dracula, and vampires and zombies, but we can’t have our national motto in our schools?”
However, some civil liberties groups say the proposal promotes religion.
“The last time I checked, God was religious,” Janice Rael, vice president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told Fox News. “The government should be neutral, and with this legislation the government is not neutral, the government is taking a position.”
The measure passed the education committee mostly along party lines, with one democrat lawmaker voting in favor and one republican voting against.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-10-29 20:07:312013-10-29 20:07:31Let me get this straight -- PA legislature can't find time to vote on SOL reform for child sex abuse victims, but they have time for this? Really?!
Dear SNAP members and supporters:This week a significant hearing is taking place over in Camden, NJ. The issue is whether a victim who repressed his memory should be permitted to bring a case now that he recovered the memory of the childhood sexual abuse he endured. Church officials want the case dismissed and claim he waited too long. They do not want the court to determine whether the accuser was abused or whether he suffers from that abuse. The church officials merely want the case dismissed. The ruling on this case could have significance for other survivors in NJ. It also shows some of the depths of legal hardball church officials employ.Anyone who is able to attend is urged to do so. The brave victim needs our moral support in the court room amidst the hardball tactics of the defense team.
When: 9:30 am Oct 30 (and likely Oct 31)
Where: Camden Courthouse
Court Room 4a
101 S 5th Street #670
Camden, NJ 08103
We hope to see you there! Please contact Barbara Blaine with questions or RSVP
State Rep. Mark Rozzi said he was talking to a group after a taxpayer rally in Harrisburg last month when someone asked him what else he was up to.
He told them about legislation he is co-sponsoring to raise the statute of limitations on the filing of civil suits in cases of child sexual abuse.
Afterward, one woman stayed behind and began crying.
Rozzi recalled her words: “Mark, I’m 75 years old. I was raped and abused by my uncle when I was 15. It was 60 years ago, and I have never forgotten one thing. I never told anybody.”
“We cannot forget,” said Rozzi, who alleges he was abused by a priest when he was 13. “It’s in your mind every single day.”
The legislation would allow adult victims of child sexual abuse to file civil suits against their abusers or the institutions that employed the abusers until the victims are age 50. The current age is 30. The legislation also would open a two-year window for victims to re-file cases thrown out of court because the statute of limitations had expired.
It wouldn’t be retroactive; victims 51 or older would still be unable to file suits.
Still, some sort of change is needed because most victims don’t come forward until later in life, Rozzi said.
Several states have increased their limits. Others are debating increases.
Pennsylvania’s proposal has been stalled in the House Judiciary Committee since it was introduced in January. Chairman Ron Marisco, a Dauphin County Republican, has said he won’t allow a vote because the proposed legislation is unconstitutional.
Apparently, Delaware lawmakers had no such concerns. They eliminated the statute of limitations, and victims there have won millions of dollars from the Catholic institutions that employed their abusers.
But this is not just about abuse by priests, said Rozzi, a Muhlenberg Township Democrat. Teachers, coaches and others use positions of trust to abuse children, he said.
“This is about justice denied, and we will not stop until we can get this done,” he said.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-10-27 18:19:442013-10-27 18:19:44More on PA sol reform
In a recent column about cowardice, I wrote about a father who beat his 2-year-old daughter so severely three years ago that she remained paralyzed, blind and brain-damaged until she died Sept. 5.
I prefer to write about cowardice’s honorable – and rare – opposite: courage.
I’ve been privileged to be the voice for several survivors of sexual abuse. Their stories, beyond shocking, expose the darkest corners of our nature and the slimy, cowardly predators who lurk there. They also reveal a courage we don’t often see.
I have learned that survivors must come forward according to their own schedules.
They might also decide not to speak out.
I’m still dismayed when people ask why a survivor took so long to talk about it, as if this is something inconsequential that happens on a Monday and on Tuesday you tell someone. The crime of sexual abuse is so colossal that most people who aren’t survivors can’t grasp its horrors.
I prefer to think that when people ask questions such as these, they are asking not out of insensitivity, though that happens often enough, but instead out of ignorance.
Tammy Troutman Miller is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and she has decided to tell her story.
Tammy, 44, of Sinking Spring said she was abused 30 years ago by someone she knows. He is still living.
“I felt a lot of guilt,” Tammy said in the office of her therapist, Dr. Alison Hill of Wyomissing.
Some family members supported Tammy’s decision to begin talking about her abuse, others didn’t.
She said she confronted her abuser, and he admitted to the abuse.
She said she forgave him.
The patterns in Tammy’s life are familiar to those who study sexual abuse of children. She used drugs and alcohol to dull the pain of her abuse. She was depressed and suicidal.
A year ago, Tammy decided to begin her emancipation from decades of silence and shame by telling her story in a video she posted on YouTube.
“You need to tell someone you trust and get help,” Tammy told me, echoing sentiments she expressed in her video.
The process of revealing one’s history of sexual abuse should lead logically to telling that story in a court of law. In Pennsylvania that is not possible because of laws that some say protect predators by insisting that survivors come to court according to a schedule that fails to account for the time needed for survivors to make the most important decision of their lives: to begin talking about their abuse.
State Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Muhlenberg Township, who told his story of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in this column, has introduced a measure to extend the civil statute of limitations from 12 years past one’s 18th birthday to 32 years and provide a two-year window for survivors of sexual abuse to file their claims in civil court.
Tammy, who said she supports the legislation introduced by Rozzi and state Sen. Rob Teplitz, D-Dauphin, works with Justice4PAKids, a statewide advocacy group. On its website is this powerful comment: “There is no statute of limitations for murder in Pennsylvania – child sexual abuse should be treated the same.”
Why should the murder of a child’s innocence be different from the murder of a child?
John Fidler is a copy editor and writer at the Reading Eagle. Contact him at 610-371-5054 or jfidler@readingeagle.com.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-10-26 18:20:052013-10-27 18:21:05Brave PA survivor speaks up for SOL reform
WHEREAS, the SOL (Statute of Limitations) is the maximum amount of time a person has to bring a lawsuit from the time of the incident, and
WHEREAS, since civil SOL’s are legislative conveniences which may be changed at the will of the Legislature, this also means that it is constitutional for the Legislature to allow victims who have run out of time under a statute of limitations to later bring suit, and
WHEREAS, Kathy Picard is an award winning child safety advocate and is a survivor of child sexual abuse, and
WHEREAS, Kathy is a speaker and writer that is working to raise awareness in all areas of child safety and has hosted many child safety events in the area, and
WHEREAS Kathy and many other advocates have been working hard to resolve the situation on House Bill 1455 and Senate Bill 633 which is to extend or totally eliminate the time frame for a survivor to be able to go forward for the abuse of a predator for justice,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Springfield City Council strongly urges the State Legislature to pass the SOL’s House Bill 1455 and Senate Bill 633 for the victims who have already suffered enough and give them the opportunity they so deserve to have some kind of closure to the crime that was committed to them against their will.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-10-24 22:28:272013-10-24 22:28:27Thank you Kathy Picard!
Int’l SOL progress!!
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformVictim of child sex abuse wins legal battle over compensation claim
A survivor of childhood sexual abuse has won a legal battle to have her claim for criminal injuries compensation reconsidered.
Her bid was earlier rejected by a tribunal which ruled it would have expected earlier disclosure of the offending but a judge held it had erred in law.
The 39-year-old woman was subjected to abuse by a next door neighbour from the ages of eight to 12, but did not report it to police until five years ago.
In 2010 her abuser was jailed for 17 years after he was convicted of sexual offences, including the rape of two young girls, one of whom was the woman.
After reporting the abuse the woman made an application for criminal injuries compensation. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority refused to make an award.
The woman, known only as JM, appealed to a First-Tier Tribunal but a judge there rejected her challenge. However, a judge at the Court of Session in Edinburgh has now set aside the tribunal decision made in 2010 and said it should be reconsidered.
Lord Boyd of Duncansby said the tribunal judge had said she would have expected the woman to have reported the matter and sought compensation within about two years of her reaching 18.
The judge said: “Other than 18 being the age of majority there is no reason to select that age to make a disclosure any more than 16 or 20 or 30. There was no evidence before the tribunal judge which entitled her to reach that conclusion.
“On the contrary, those who have presided over trials of historical sex abuse of children are only too aware of the deep psychological and emotional trauma that surrounds such criminal activity.
“In order to carry off such abuse the victim has to be cowed or otherwise subdued into remaining silent. That is a continuing effect of the crime. Disclosure may be made years or even decades after the abuse has ended.”
Lord Boyd continued: “To suggest that this effect disappears once the child has reached adulthood is to misunderstand the pervasive nature of the trauma which victims of childhood sexual abuse invariably suffer.”
The tribunal had noted that there was evidence that the woman had told her brother about the abuse when they were children.
But Lord Boyd said: “In my opinion it is quite irrational to hold that disclosure while she was a child to a sibling who was also a child at the time and was in turn in fear of the abuser should point to the conclusion that it was reasonable to expect her to make the application within two years of her 18th birthday.”
In her compensation application the woman was asked to give reasons why it was not made before and said she ‘didn’t say anything because of fear that my neighbour would kill my parents and I would have to live with him forever.”
She said he had scarred her for life and feared that he may have also abused others.
She said: “I feel guilty I couldn’t come forward before, as it was too hard to talk about it.”
Lord Boyd said it was accepted that there was no direct medical evidence before the tribunal but he added: “I have to say that I find that mildly astonishing in a case such as this where there were clear indications of psychological trauma.”
Let me get this straight — PA legislature can’t find time to vote on SOL reform for child sex abuse victims, but they have time for this? Really?!
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformPennsylvania Public Schools May Soon Be Required To Display Words ‘In God We Trust’
The words “In God We Trust” may soon be displayed in all Pennsylvania public schools.
A Pennsylvania bill that would require the state’s schools to display the phrase passed the House Education Committee last week in a 14-to-9 vote, according to Fox News. While proponents of the bill say it would serve to honor a national motto, others say it would violate the separation of church and state.
Rep. Rick Saccone (R-Allegheny) sponsored the bill, titled The National Motto Display Act. He says it’s important that schools display the words “In God We Trust,” as the phrase is closely connected to Pennsylvania history. Former Pennsylvania Gov. James Pollack is reportedly responsible for putting the phrase on coins while serving as the director of the United States Mint about 150 years ago, according to local outlet WHTM-TV. The phrase was adopted as a national motto in 1956.
The measure would require schools to present the words on a plaque or through student artwork, according to the outlet.
“It’s passive exposure,” Saccone told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “They don’t have to look at it because if it’s on the cafeteria wall or if it’s over the front door they can look at it or don’t have to look at it. Why would we not celebrate our national motto? We can have witches on brooms in schools, we can have Dracula, and vampires and zombies, but we can’t have our national motto in our schools?”
However, some civil liberties groups say the proposal promotes religion.
“The last time I checked, God was religious,” Janice Rael, vice president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told Fox News. “The government should be neutral, and with this legislation the government is not neutral, the government is taking a position.”
The measure passed the education committee mostly along party lines, with one democrat lawmaker voting in favor and one republican voting against.
It is unclear when the measure will be brought up for a full House vote.
NJ Action Alert: Hearing in Camden on Wed.
/in New Jersey /by SOL ReformDear SNAP members and supporters:This week a significant hearing is taking place over in Camden, NJ. The issue is whether a victim who repressed his memory should be permitted to bring a case now that he recovered the memory of the childhood sexual abuse he endured. Church officials want the case dismissed and claim he waited too long. They do not want the court to determine whether the accuser was abused or whether he suffers from that abuse. The church officials merely want the case dismissed. The ruling on this case could have significance for other survivors in NJ. It also shows some of the depths of legal hardball church officials employ.Anyone who is able to attend is urged to do so. The brave victim needs our moral support in the court room amidst the hardball tactics of the defense team.
When: 9:30 am Oct 30 (and likely Oct 31)
Where: Camden Courthouse
Court Room 4a
101 S 5th Street #670
Camden, NJ 08103
We hope to see you there! Please contact Barbara Blaine with questions or RSVP
Barbara Blaine
312-399-4747
Barbara Blaine
http://www.snapnetwork.org/
More on PA sol reform
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL Reformhttp://readingeagle.com/
State Rep. Mark Rozzi said he was talking to a group after a taxpayer rally in Harrisburg last month when someone asked him what else he was up to.
He told them about legislation he is co-sponsoring to raise the statute of limitations on the filing of civil suits in cases of child sexual abuse.
Afterward, one woman stayed behind and began crying.
Rozzi recalled her words: “Mark, I’m 75 years old. I was raped and abused by my uncle when I was 15. It was 60 years ago, and I have never forgotten one thing. I never told anybody.”
“We cannot forget,” said Rozzi, who alleges he was abused by a priest when he was 13. “It’s in your mind every single day.”
The legislation would allow adult victims of child sexual abuse to file civil suits against their abusers or the institutions that employed the abusers until the victims are age 50. The current age is 30. The legislation also would open a two-year window for victims to re-file cases thrown out of court because the statute of limitations had expired.
It wouldn’t be retroactive; victims 51 or older would still be unable to file suits.
Still, some sort of change is needed because most victims don’t come forward until later in life, Rozzi said.
Several states have increased their limits. Others are debating increases.
Pennsylvania’s proposal has been stalled in the House Judiciary Committee since it was introduced in January. Chairman Ron Marisco, a Dauphin County Republican, has said he won’t allow a vote because the proposed legislation is unconstitutional.
Apparently, Delaware lawmakers had no such concerns. They eliminated the statute of limitations, and victims there have won millions of dollars from the Catholic institutions that employed their abusers.
But this is not just about abuse by priests, said Rozzi, a Muhlenberg Township Democrat. Teachers, coaches and others use positions of trust to abuse children, he said.
“This is about justice denied, and we will not stop until we can get this done,” he said.
Brave PA survivor speaks up for SOL reform
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformJohn Fidler: Courage to speak out about sexual abuse cannot be tied to a legal calendar
10/25/2013
In a recent column about cowardice, I wrote about a father who beat his 2-year-old daughter so severely three years ago that she remained paralyzed, blind and brain-damaged until she died Sept. 5.
I prefer to write about cowardice’s honorable – and rare – opposite: courage.
I’ve been privileged to be the voice for several survivors of sexual abuse. Their stories, beyond shocking, expose the darkest corners of our nature and the slimy, cowardly predators who lurk there. They also reveal a courage we don’t often see.
I have learned that survivors must come forward according to their own schedules.
They might also decide not to speak out.
I’m still dismayed when people ask why a survivor took so long to talk about it, as if this is something inconsequential that happens on a Monday and on Tuesday you tell someone. The crime of sexual abuse is so colossal that most people who aren’t survivors can’t grasp its horrors.
I prefer to think that when people ask questions such as these, they are asking not out of insensitivity, though that happens often enough, but instead out of ignorance.
Tammy Troutman Miller is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and she has decided to tell her story.
Tammy, 44, of Sinking Spring said she was abused 30 years ago by someone she knows. He is still living.
“I felt a lot of guilt,” Tammy said in the office of her therapist, Dr. Alison Hill of Wyomissing.
Some family members supported Tammy’s decision to begin talking about her abuse, others didn’t.
She said she confronted her abuser, and he admitted to the abuse.
She said she forgave him.
The patterns in Tammy’s life are familiar to those who study sexual abuse of children. She used drugs and alcohol to dull the pain of her abuse. She was depressed and suicidal.
A year ago, Tammy decided to begin her emancipation from decades of silence and shame by telling her story in a video she posted on YouTube.
“You need to tell someone you trust and get help,” Tammy told me, echoing sentiments she expressed in her video.
The process of revealing one’s history of sexual abuse should lead logically to telling that story in a court of law. In Pennsylvania that is not possible because of laws that some say protect predators by insisting that survivors come to court according to a schedule that fails to account for the time needed for survivors to make the most important decision of their lives: to begin talking about their abuse.
State Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Muhlenberg Township, who told his story of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in this column, has introduced a measure to extend the civil statute of limitations from 12 years past one’s 18th birthday to 32 years and provide a two-year window for survivors of sexual abuse to file their claims in civil court.
Tammy, who said she supports the legislation introduced by Rozzi and state Sen. Rob Teplitz, D-Dauphin, works with Justice4PAKids, a statewide advocacy group. On its website is this powerful comment: “There is no statute of limitations for murder in Pennsylvania – child sexual abuse should be treated the same.”
Why should the murder of a child’s innocence be different from the murder of a child?
John Fidler is a copy editor and writer at the Reading Eagle. Contact him at 610-371-5054 or jfidler@readingeagle.com.
Thank you Kathy Picard!
/in Massachusetts /by SOL ReformC I T Y O F S P R I N G F I E L D
In the City Council October 21, 2013
WHEREAS, the SOL (Statute of Limitations) is the maximum amount of time a person has to bring a lawsuit from the time of the incident, and
WHEREAS, since civil SOL’s are legislative conveniences which may be changed at the will of the Legislature, this also means that it is constitutional for the Legislature to allow victims who have run out of time under a statute of limitations to later bring suit, and
WHEREAS, Kathy Picard is an award winning child safety advocate and is a survivor of child sexual abuse, and
WHEREAS, Kathy is a speaker and writer that is working to raise awareness in all areas of child safety and has hosted many child safety events in the area, and
WHEREAS Kathy and many other advocates have been working hard to resolve the situation on House Bill 1455 and Senate Bill 633 which is to extend or totally eliminate the time frame for a survivor to be able to go forward for the abuse of a predator for justice,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Springfield City Council strongly urges the State Legislature to pass the SOL’s House Bill 1455 and Senate Bill 633 for the victims who have already suffered enough and give them the opportunity they so deserve to have some kind of closure to the crime that was committed to them against their will.