KEY POINTS:
"Men get sexually excited and don't tend to think properly - it's God's fault."
This is the view of one New Zealand juror who participated in a study about why sexual abuse of children occurs in our society.
The study - which reviewed child sex abuse trials between
2005 and 2006 - looked at jurors' knowledge, beliefs and misconceptions about child sexual abuse.
It also questioned jurors about the child's credibility while giving evidence and asked what was needed to secure a guilty verdict.
The results - which have been presented to police, lawyers and various experts - found jurors held a wide range of views on what makes child witnesses and complainants credible.
The difficulty was that many of those views were conflicting, therefore making it hard for jurors to unanimously determine the truth - something that is required for a verdict.
An example was the level of emotion children showed while giving their evidence. One juror said that an absence of distress came across as showing the witness was overly coached and contrived while another said that the lack of eye contact, crying and not wanting to say anything made the child unbelievable. As far as police are concerned, this makes it difficult to get a conviction as it shows that regardless of how a child comes across in court, one of the jurors will probably think he or she is lying.
Dr Suzanne Blackwell, who conducted the research, found that only 33 per cent of child sexual abuse cases studied result in a conviction, so part of her study tried to find out why.
She found that jurors wanted corroboration, either in the form of DNA, hard medical evidence or a strong witness in order to convict. "There was no hard evidence. We really wanted a video of him doing it," said one juror.
KEY FINDINGS
* Juries want DNA, medical evidence or strong eyewitnesses - all of which are difficult to obtain in child sex abuse cases.
* Juries are less likely to believe teenagers.
* If sex cases don't involve penetration, juries tend to minimise the harm and avoid convicting.
* Defence lawyers use leading, misleading and confusing questions which lead to inconsistent child evidence. Jurors hate these tactics but still take heed of inconsistencies in the evidence.
* Defence lawyers utilise common misconceptions about child sex abuse (eg, an abused child would have reported it immediately) to discredit victims.
* Only a third of child sexual abuse cases result in a conviction.
