He abused my little girl. How can he just walk free?
When the son of family friends sexually assaulted their daughter, they expected justice. But in a case that’s sparked uproar, Christopher Daniel escaped punishment – and left the victim and her stunned parents devastated...
IT HAD been a normal, pleasant evening. Two families enjoying some time together, the children piling upstairs to play on the computer and mess about on board games while the parents sat downstairs and chatted.
There was absolutely nothing to worry about, at least that’s what Annette* thought. Until the next day, when she received a call from her husband while she was at work.
‘He called me on the mobile and said that our daughter had told him that our friends’ son had been touching her. He said, “I think this is one for you to speak to her about”.’
What followed was every parent’s worst nightmare. Rachel*, eight, whose name we have changed along with her mother’s in order to protect the victim’s identity, told her parents that 17-year-old Christopher Daniel, the son of friends whom they regularly socialised with, had been repeatedly touching her between her legs through her clothes over the past two years, since she was just six.
‘Initially, although you’re listening to what she’s saying and you know that’s a sexual act you’re thinking, “Have you got that right? Is that really what happened?” But her story never changed,’ says Annette.
‘There was no misunderstanding. This wasn’t an accident. She knew that this act had happened repeatedly and that she didn’t like it. She told us an adult had walked in twice on separate occasions and his hand immediately moved away, and then as soon as somebody went back downstairs his hand would instantly go back on.
‘She had actually said to herself, if this happens one more time then I’m going to tell my Dad. So she did.’
The ripple effects of Rachel’s brave confession to her parents last year are still in motion. In the ensuing months, Daniel was arrested and charged with sexual assault on a minor.
In December, he was found guilty after a three-day trial at Dumbarton Sheriff Court. Yet in an astonishing twist, Daniel was given an ‘absolute discharge’ by Sheriff Gerard Sinclair, meaning that the teenager’s guilty verdict will not be recorded as a conviction and he will not be placed on the sex offenders register.
In a statement released by the Judicial Office for Scotland, the judge said he ‘considered the offence to be the result of an entirely inappropriate curiosity of an emotionally naive teenager, rather than for the purpose of sexual gratification’.
He pointed out that a sentence would mean that Daniel, a dental student, ‘would probably be unable to continue his university course’.
In a final crushing blow yesterday, in an emotional meeting with the Crown Office, Annette was told they could not move forward with an appeal. The family are understandably furious. ‘I am horrified,’ says Annette. ‘I felt so angry. I kept waiting for the big reason for the absolute discharge. I kept thinking I’d missed something. But I hadn’t, because there isn’t one.
‘It was as if they’d said, “Well, your child has been touched, a man’s been found guilty, but we really don’t want to hinder his career”.’ She shakes her head.
‘No chance. That’s fuelled a fire for us to be able to push this further. I won’t stop fighting to try and protect my child.’
Annette, along with her husband and children, lives a comfortable life. The house has all the clutter and noise of an affluent, happy family and life, for the most part, was good.
Having become friends with Daniel’s parents, when the families socialised it was, Annette stresses, ‘very, very normal’.
The children, who ranged in age, would go upstairs together to play or watch videos while the adults were downstairs. ‘You just don’t expect anything to happen,’ she says. ‘And if you did you’d never let your children go anywhere.
‘This is a respectable family and we had no qualms. So the kids would go off upstairs and play, and then come downstairs and bring Rubik’s cubes and bits and bobs they’d been playing with. I never had a cause for concern about it.’
When Rachel first told her parents about the abuse, Annette says she was heartbroken.
‘She said that it didn’t happen on Christmas Eve, when we had seen the family, and she thought that was probably because Santa was watching him. That really puts into perspective the innocence of a child. She thought Santa Claus had made a difference. That was upsetting.’
At first, Annette thought that the families might be able to handle things themselves. Daniel’s mother had taken the situation very seriously when Annette and her husband had told her, and Daniel himself said that he would speak to them about it.
‘I had a lot of trust in his mum and dad to really work with us on being able to find out what had been happening and then we could make a decision of what we would do from there. And I thought it was brave of Christopher to say that he would speak to us.’
While Daniel initially said he did not understand what Rachel was talking about, he later admitted to Annette that he had touched her.
‘He said it hadn’t been for sexual gratification, that he had touched her on more than one occasion and he should have told his mum after it happened the first time,’ says Annette. Yet within a few days of
‘It’s the worst thing we have ever been through as a family’
‘I feel that it is 100 per cent unduly lenient’
that conversation Daniel’s mother was, says Annette, making excuses, suggesting something had happened only because her son was ‘clumsy’. Annette realised that she could not trust that the matter would be handled appropriately.
‘It must be very hard as a mum to hear that your son’s been doing that, I get that.
‘But there’s right and wrong, and I’ve got to protect not just my daughter, but any other children he might encounter. I felt he should be punished for what he had done. So we rang Police Scotland.’ The family were asked to attend the child protection unit of a police station to give separate statements. Right from the start, says Annette, things were not handled well. ‘Nobody tells you how to deal with your child when it comes to things like this,’ she says.
‘Rachel had to give a statement but there’s nobody saying, “This is the best thing to do”. I didn’t know whether to tell her beforehand and give her a chance to get her head round it, or if that would just make her worry. I didn’t know whether to tell her the morning of, or if springing it on her would have some detrimental impact.’
In the end, Rachel spent an hour with two specialist female officers and gave a long and detailed videorecorded statement which resulted in Daniel’s arrest. She broke down in tears twice during it.
So the family were aghast when they were later told the recording, which would have been used in court, had failed, and the tape was blank. When Daniel opted to plead not guilty, Rachel had to give evidence in court. For two hours Rachel was questioned by the prosecutor and cross-examined by Daniel’s lawyer by video link in another room in the court. According to Annette, the experience has traumatised her daughter.
It’s all a long way from the Lord President’s declaration last year that sex crime victims should no longer appear in court. Lord Carloway said his ‘ultimate objective’ was for them to be able to give filmed statements within 24 hours of reporting the crime, with crossexamination taking place before the trial and away from court.
Holyrood’s justice committee recently urged Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf to adopt a Scandinavian approach, where children give pre-recorded evidence in a single interview to specially trained officers at centres away from police stations and courts.
‘It was traumatising for her,’ says Annette. ‘She’s worried about bumping into Mr Whyte [Daniel’s lawyer]. It frightened her. She did a project in school that mentioned people ending up in court and again she was frightened.
‘Even though she didn’t go into the court room itself, she could see the people she was speaking to, she could see the judge.’
She adds: ‘I am at the point of thinking, ‘Should I take her on a trip to court one day? Would that help?’ You’re constantly thinking on your feet as a mum. She’s my daughter. I’m trying to protect her. It’s been horrific.’
The verdict floored the family. ‘I got the call and at first I was so relieved when I heard he’d been found guilty,’ she says.
‘Then I was told he’d been given an absolute discharge. I’d never heard that saying before. We’re not a family who’s ever even been to court before. So I asked, “What does that mean? Does he go on the sex offenders register?” No. “Does he get a criminal record?” No.
‘So what does happen? What was the point in finding him guilty? I kept thinking what does this teach? When Rachel’s a big girl and she asks me what happened, how can I explain this to her?’
After the trial, the Crown Office told the family it planned to challenge the decision, but on January 4 they were informed the appeal had been aborted. They have now written to Lord Advocate James Wolffe, QC, head of the Crown Office, to urge him to reconsider the choice not to appeal, and say they will not stop fighting.
‘We don’t want another child to ever have to go through this,’ says Annette. ‘We were trying to protect other people. And then a judge has ruled that he actually can go back into dental school.
‘If they chuck him out he could become a lifeguard, a teacher, a gynaecologist, anything. Because nothing stops it. Because he’s not on the sex offenders register there’s nothing there to stop him from working with children. You have a man who has been found guilty of sexual assault for repeatedly touching a child between the legs and yet they’re fearful of putting him on the sex offenders register. Why? I can only think it’s because they thought he was an intelligent young man who’s not going to be able to get onto his university course because of it.’
Meanwhile Rachel, along with the whole family, is left to deal with the fallout. ‘It’s the worst thing we’ve ever been through as a family,’ says Annette. ‘Rachel is OK day to day. But she does talk more and more about it.
‘I worry about how this will impact on her when she gets older. At the minute she’s been told it’s wrong and it didn’t feel right and that’s why she told us. When she gets older and gets into relationships and we tell her more – I’m fearful about that. I pray it’s not going to have an impact.’
In his statement, Sheriff Sinclair said ‘the complainant appeared to have suffered no injury or longlasting effects’. Annette scoffs: ‘I don’t remember getting a call asking how she was. She has been upset. On a handful of nights she’s cried about it. One day she was talking about it and I was getting upset, and I didn’t want her to see that. But she’s a confident girl and she said to me, “I know this has been really hard for you Mum, but it’s been worse for me.”’
Yesterday, during her meeting with the Crown Office, Annette says she cried as she was told that they were not going to appeal because in their view the sentence was not unduly lenient.
‘I feel it is 100 per cent unduly lenient,’ she says. ‘I said that I felt it was outrageous his career prospects somehow mean he has not been put on the sex offenders register. I am devastated. Utterly devastated. If you asked everybody as an individual what they thought about this they would say it’s wrong and yet somehow it can’t be taken any further.’
Following the meeting at the Crown Office the family are now looking at a potential judicial review into the decision of the Lord Advocate not to appeal the sentence, something that would require crowdfunding.
‘I will just carry on fighting for this as far as I can take it,’ Annette says. ‘What else can I do as a mother?’ *Names have been changed.
Comment – Page 16