Follow Up

Thanks so much for all your input on yesterdays post. As always, they are all appreciated and thought about.
Yesterday was a hell of a day for me work wise. I had no idea this matter was coming up, as the defence must make an application (they have 2 weeks before the pre recording of evidence) to cross examine the complainant or the witnesses. Because it is such a pain in the arse to apply, and it is up to the Magistrate to accept or decline, most defence lawyers waiver their right and cross examine at trial time. This is great, it means the kids only get ctoss examined the once....fabulous! This time however, the darn defence made application, and we had to go in. Well, that is ME! It meant rearranging the day i was to spend with "A", it was her athletics carnival and she didn't want to go (she's like me....good at ball sports, lousy at running!!) so i promised we'd spend the day together...a movie....ice cream....some fun. Well, all that went out the window. So pissed off, into work i go. Waiting waiting waiting, my arresting officer turns up and asks if i had seen them. Well, i thought they'd be with him, they were meant to go through statements etc.....nope. So we decide to phone them, around 10.15am. All 3 of them were in bed, had no intention of turning up. "Don't worry about it" one said!!!
Ok, so it went downhill from there as you can imagine. My point yesterday was to highlight the small ( but they are there) group of girls (and some boys) who just don't give a shit. They treat the whole thing as joke, they ask for money, and then treat you like a piece of shit as well!!! Hello! I'm trying to help! I aint the enemy!
As Phil and JQP so rightly said, indeed there are teens that react this way for a reason, quite a number of them do. Then there are the group who are just shattered, just having so much trouble coping. Then there are the larger group who are handling it on the outside, but on the inside are a mess.
The group i spoke of is small. Their families are alcoholics......have been in trouble with the cops, the girls themselves are often witnesses in other cases, they don't go to school often, they hang around places they shouldn't be, they drink etc. Remember the case i had where 5 girls all claimed a 21 yold had raped them, and 1 other girl who had a baby by this guy who refused all the way to the day of the trial to testify against him? All of these girls are exactly what i'm talking about. In the end we through this matter out of court, it was blatently obvious the girls were talking rubbish, only the one with the kid went ahead, and the guy ended up serving no time because he'd already served 12 months while waiting! Still, stuff like this is wasting tax payers money.

till next time, Michelle.