Reply #181: Those are tough cases. The ones I've seen, as a journalist,

[Liberty Belle]

were a bit different. Mostly they involved divorcing couples, where the mother wanted to take the child away from the father after discovering sexual abuse. Courts chose to believe the father over the mother, or simply ignored the evidence.

In some cases it may have been word of mouth, ie, his against hers. In others, there was quite a bit of evidence documenting the abuse, including pediatricians' records of physical damage, school counselors statements, siblings or others who witnessed the events. Plus the testimony of the child or teen. It seems to me that if a kid says she's being raped and is afraid of the accused rapist, the court should err on the side of taking the child's word and putting the child with the mother, assuming she's sane and halfway stable, or with someone else if that is not possible.

Many of these women are bright, intelligent professionals--not low-life drug addicts or psychos.