Opinion ID: 1425788
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: t.'s complaints of pain

Text: R.T.'s father testified that during the summer of 1985, and up to the beginning of September 1985, R.T. occasionally complained that her bottom was very sore while doubling over and putting her hands on her crotch. The Court of Appeals rejected this evidence as having any significance on the basis that it was medically unsubstantiated and because the complaints occurred months after the abuse allegedly occurred and ceased 1 month before the allegations came to light. We agree that it is clear that R.T.'s complaints ceased 1 month before the allegations came to light in early October. Less clear, however, is the timing of the alleged abuse. R.T.'s father testified that the defendants baby-sat R.T. a couple of times a month during 1985. The only time he could recall the defendant William Swan being there was when R.T. spent the night with the defendants in January 1985. The defendant Kathy Swan testified that she baby-sat R.T. only five or six times between January and October 1985. Both defendants testified that the only time R.T. was with William Swan in her parents' absence was on the January night she spent with the defendants. [7] If the defendants' testimony is believed, R.T. could have been sexually assaulted by William Swan only on that January night, well before her complaints of pain began. She had more chances at a later time to be assaulted by Kathy Swan, however, according to both her father and Kathy Swan. The information which was filed in this case charged the defendants with raping the girls between January and October 1985. Thus, the timing of the alleged abuse does not appear to us to be as certain as the Court of Appeals seemed to indicate. It is true that the complaints were not medically substantiated, but according to at least one authority, psychosomatic complaints about pain in the genitals or buttocks may be a symptom of sexual victimization. [39] We thus conclude that R.T.'s complaints did provide some degree of corroboration of sexual abuse.