Nina Funnell

They had to wait two and a half years for it to even get to court, during which time they couldn't speak to each other or their parents about what had happened to them because that's considered contaminating the witnesses.

Yeah.

If you can imagine you're five years old and then you've got to retain this memory by yourself for two and a half years.

That in and of itself is... Impossible.

Well, it's cruel.

It's actually cruel and heartless.

This is two and a half years.

I mean, that's half your life over again, right?

They're from Albury-Wodonga.

They had to relocate to Sydney and live in a hotel room for three months.

When it actually went to trial, they couldn't have their parents present, as you said.

They were cross-examined for days and days on end.

Then a jury member fell asleep.

So they had to release the jury, empanel a new jury and start the process all over again.

I mean, these and these are just these are young girls who have already been through something incredibly, incredibly distressing and traumatic.

Also, the nature of our justice system in general, like we know that in terms of if somebody's been impacted by sexual assault trauma, what they need is to be able to tell their story and particularly children.

They need to be able to tell their story in their own words, in their own time and space.

Without intrusive interrogating questioning, they need to be able to, ideally, like in a therapeutic setting, be believed and listened to.

And our justice system is the exact opposite of that.

The starting premise is that the accused person is innocent and so that therefore you must be lying.