The Hearsay Rule and Delayed Complaints of Child Sexual Abuse: The Law and the Evidence

This article discusses the implications of two recent High Court cases on the admissibility of hearsay evidence of a child’s delayed disclosure of child sexual abuse. It compares and contrasts the traditional legal significance of delayed disclosure (as being evidence of fabrication) with prevalence studies from the psychological literature which show that a majority of children delay disclosure and that, rather than being an aberrant feature of child sexual abuse, delay is a typical response of sexually abused children as a result of confusion, denial, self-blame and overt and covert threats by offenders. In addition, several self-report studies of offenders confirm that grooming processes create a relationship of power between the child and offender such that delayed disclosure appears to reflect the position of powerlessness of the sexually abused child within that relationship. In light of what the psychological literature tells us, this article challenges the narrow legal approach to the admissibility of hearsay evidence of delayed disclosure and suggests that a special exception should be made for hearsay statements of a child’s delayed disclosure in child sexual assault trials.