To be annoyed with school? Poss trigger warning.

[AntheaBelveden]

DD1 is 16, in her first year of sixth form. One of her A levels is law.

Her law teacher took the class to court today so they could see a case being tried.

The case turned out to be one of child sexual abuse.

DD1 has come home in floods of tears as the evidence they heard was very graphic and included testimony from one of the victims (it's a historical case, so the victims are now adults).

DD got very upset in the court, as did others from their class and asked the teacher if they could leave.

The teacher told them they could leave " if they really had to" but it may affect their marks at the end of the year.

AIBU to think they should have been allowed to leave?

In a boring fraud trial the students will be able to observe the procedures and rituals of the court more easily than at a trial like this where they are spending all their energy processing what they have heard from witnesses.
Utterly inappropriate

At 16/17, they aren't very far off being able to do jury service, and then having to potentially see everything, read everything. They had the opportunity to leave, and could likely have taken a breather if they needed it.

I think the visit should have been planned better, but it may have been the only trial on, yes, other courts might be in use, but if the purpose is to observe a trial, then there may not have been a lot of choice.

I'm very on the fence on this one.

Would this really be more distressing than, say, learning about the holocaust in history?

Potentially, yes. Because reading about or being told 5th hand about horrific things is easier to accept than hearing it directly from a victim. I sure OPs daughter is aware that sexual abuse happens, but being confronted with it so directly is quite different.

blueskyrain - I would assume that, if an 18-year-old was called for jury service in a trial like this one, they, at the least, would be offered support, and I suspect all the jurors would have support available to them.

As a 30 something adult I couldn't sit through a trail like this, never mind a 16 year old.

Support for something like that no. Just wouldn't happen whether18 or 48. sad to say that the case just wouldn't be deemed traumatic enough. For q sexually motivated child murder with very explicit evidence, video etc yes, but as unpleasant as historical sexual abuse cases are, the jury would get neither a choice nor support.

Yanbu. A law firm won't let them pick and choose cases but doe example my friend works on property law, her firm would never handle a cold abuse case so she'd never deal with it as a lawyer. Plus they're kids, not adults as a qualified lawyer is or a juror. And telling conscientious, ambitious teens that doing X might affect their mark is likely to mean none of them are going to risk it