I feel that the last sentence was a personal attack on me so I will address it. I am in no way defending or tolerating sex crimes against children or adults.
I believe that victims tell their own truth. Only very rarely do victims lie. Only once have I ever known of a child victim to lie, and that was in circumstances when she had been subjected to terrible abuse in the past, was in the foster system and she learned that if she made an allegation of abuse, she would be removed from the family she was with. It became a pattern when she was unhappy with a parenting decision. Very sad case.
It is common for young children’s memories to change, especially when adults continue to reinforce a memory. It’s not uncommon for abused children to remember their offender as a different person to the abuser, particularly when an adult leads the discussion and says to the child “It was X, wasn’t it”. Sometimes children will agree because they have been threatened by the offender, or because if they agree, the questions will stop. The more the story is enforced, the more the memory is enforced until it becomes the entrenched memory which becomes their truth.
I prosecuted literally hundreds of cases of child sex abuse. It’s hard and very rarely rewarding work. The scenario I’ve given above is not common, but it happens often enough. We can’t send innocent people to jail. We just can’t.
I don’t defend sex offences. While I believe that every defendant is entitled to the best possible defence, I choose to leave that to other lawyers to do. Everyone is traumatised. I don’t know a single lawyer who enjoys cross examining a victim. Even prosecuting sex offences was gut wrenching. Everyone is entitled to a fair trial and to have their case presented by a competent lawyer.