My friend wants some advice about reporting abuse that took place 25 years ago....

[colditz]

She has reported someone who raped her when she was six

She has had a video interview, where she had top give all the details, it was passed onto CID and CID are now saying that they feel this should be dealt with by people who are specially trained to deal with rape victims and child abuse victims, and because the abuser was a family memeber they want her to be dealt with by them.

She doesn't really understand what is going on, and is dreading having to go through all this again. They have asked her to do ANOTHER video interview, and she can't rememeber who the specialists are who will be doing it.

Does anyone have any advice for her? I have given her the Rape Crisis number but it's not open tonight and I've got her on the phone now. She asked me to post this btw, I'#m not betraying a confidence.

...

I have no advice for her, but do understand. I hope she is ok. Glad she has you to lean on.

my little cousin has just done exactly this, she had to go through the story twice on video, the second video was a lot better as she was more used to answering questions and they were very experienced and sensitive

my heart goes out to her

I know of someone who went through a similar thing. She reported her father and had a successful conviction some years after the event. But whe was not a friend of mine, and don't know what process was followed ...

I think that they probably want her to speak to people who better understand what she is and was going through rather than an immediate "this just happened to me" type thing that is the usual crime report that they deal with.

Also rapes are often passed on to specialist investigators / teams who are better at dealing with the emotions and specifics involved.

She should see it as a good thing I think