‘You, of all people’: the inappropriateness of imputing knowledge of victim harm onto sexually abused child sexual offenders during sentencing

Abstract

ABSTRACT The law presumes that children who are sexually abused will experience long-term physical and/or psychological harm. The research suggests that child sexual abuse can cause cognitive distortions and may reduce the victim’s ability to empathise with others. Despite this, when it comes to sentencing child sexual offenders who were also victims of childhood sexual abuse, some judges impute knowledge of the victims’ harm onto the offenders. This article examines 13 sentencing remarks made in New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria between 2005 and 2018 containing these imputations and discusses whether these statements are appropriate when considering the empirical evidence. The sentencing remarks show that the victims’ lived experiences align with the literature. This article argues that it is inappropriate for sentencing judges to impute knowledge of the victims’ harm onto offenders, and similar statements should be avoided in future.