‘How could this happen?’ - Notes for when language fails
If a child grows up in a home where their feelings are continually dismissed, minimised and ignored, they are taught that their feelings do not matter.
You never know what to expect in a trial. There will be the line of witnesses, prosecutors and defence counsels going back and forth. Pick up any paper or click onto a link and you will easily find a story of abuse, recollected through a trial.
Every case is different but they all carry common themes; a violation, an abuse of trust by a family member/ friend/ pillar of community, a vulnerable person who has been victimised. A timeline that could span years between the first offence and the first official statement to Gardaí. Like night follows day, questions will be raised over why these claims weren’t brought to light sooner.
Whenever a case of this kind comes up in the courts, a rote cycle of questions follow: “Why wasn’t this reported on sooner?”, “Why didn’t anyone notice what was going on?”, “How could this happen?”
These questions come from a genuine place of concern. They are a plea for confirmation, or for comfort, that there is a system open for people who have suffered abuse.
There are organisations, charities and care workers who are fighting everyday to help survivors of abuse. There are diligent members of An Garda Síochána with years of experience in helping abuse survivors. There are organisations who are fighting to change legislation to stop the use of counselling notes in trials.
Rape Crisis Ireland stated in January 2026 about the use of counselling notes in courts: “Survivors deserve the assurance that their deeply personal information will be safeguarded and not used in ways that compromise their privacy or care. We firmly believe this protection is fundamental to supporting survivors and upholding their dignity throughout the justice process.”
The questions obfuscate the fact that abuse is not taken seriously enough.
At a recent trial the court heard about troubling concerns being raised in relation to a victim of child sexual abuse. However, it was years later that the case would come before the courts, and only as a result of the now adult victim coming forward.
A lapse of attention, a failure of awareness by the responsible adults of victims of child sexual abuse must be considered. After so many years, words can tidy and minimise the actions done by people out of indifference or carelessness.
In cases of historic abuse, the victim has had to wait for everyone else in their life to catch up to them. Behaviours that were dismissed as ‘harmless’, ‘they don’t mean anything by it’, are all of a sudden cast in a blinding, excruciating light.
At least it’s excruciating for the people playing catch-up. For the victim, they have been living in this stasis for years, feeling a pain that others may have ignored. They’ve had to go on their own journey towards justice on their own, or with the help of therapy and counselling.
How many of these victims will be impacted knowing that their deepest traumas, related in counselling, can be dug up and thrown at them in a court of law?
With the question: “Why could this happen?” the answer is: because it could. More often than not, the only thing preventing a child from being abused by a predator is vigilance. It is not a vigilante group of wannabe internet heroes, or a carceral system doling out prison sentences.
To keep a child safe, a child must first know what safety means. If a child grows up in a home where their feelings are continually dismissed, minimised and ignored, they are taught that their feelings do not matter. If they live in a home where their emotions are met with anger and frustration, they will shrink themselves so as to not upset the apple cart or to be accused of the cardinal sin of ‘attention-seeking’.
That child will not be taught that they are a human being who deserves to be loved, respected and protected, that no one is allowed to mistreat them or hurt them. In courtrooms, it is terrifying to see how many people were never taught this.
The charge that a person who claims abuse is only doing so ‘for attention’ elides a question;
Has this person ever gotten the attention they deserved?
