Delay in criminal justice system: 11-year-old victim waits 22 years to testify in sexual abuse case

A Court of Appeal judgment has exposed the extraordinary delays in Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system, revealing that a 11-year-old victim of grave sexual abuse in 2001 was only able to testify before the High Court in 2023, approximately 22 years after the alleged offence.  

The judgment, delivered by a two-judge bench comprising Justices P. Kumararatnam and Pradeep Hettiarachchi, observed that the victim was 33 years old when he gave evidence during the trial, despite the offences having allegedly occurred when he was a child.  

The case relates to an indictment filed by the Attorney General against K.S. Rathnasiri on charges of kidnapping a minor from lawful guardianship and committing grave sexual abuse under Sections 354 and 365B(2)(b) of the Penal Code in Embilipitiya. The offences were alleged to have taken place between October 2001 and April 2002.  

The accused had challenged his conviction on five grounds, including the discrepancies in the prosecution’s evidence.   According to the evidence, the victim was about 11 years old when the incident occurred between October 2001 and April 2002 at a chena cultivated by the accused. The prosecution alleged that the accused lured the child into the cultivation and sexually abused him before threatening to reveal earlier incidents of abuse by others if he disclosed the assault to his parents.  

The High Court had sentenced the accused to five years’ rigorous imprisonment for kidnapping from lawful guardianship and 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment for grave sexual abuse. Both sentences were ordered to run concurrently. The court also imposed fines of Rs. 5,000 on each count and directed the accused to pay Rs. 50,000 as compensation to the victim.  Before the Court of Appeal, the defence argued that the prosecution had failed to establish that the child had been taken without the consent of his lawful guardian. Rejecting the submission, Justice Kumararatnam held that the father’s testimony clearly demonstrated that the child had been taken away without his knowledge or consent, thereby proving the offence of kidnapping from lawful guardianship.   The accused also contended that contradictions regarding the date of the incident created reasonable doubt. However, the Court observed that both the victim and his father had testified approximately 22 years after the events and that minor inconsistencies were natural given the lapse of time. The judges held that such discrepancies did not undermine the core of the prosecution’s case or the victim’s credibility.