Justice Isn't Blind, It Has Pockets

In one of investigative team The Manifold's interviews, a woman describes more than fifteen years of domestic violence against herself and her daughter, who reported the girl's father for sexual abuse. What we hear, in parallel, is also an account of institutional violence: from the first complaint to the first trial ten years later, the mother had to fight not only the police, prosecutorial, and judicial authorities to protect her daughter, but also mental health professionals, social workers, psychiatrists, and court-appointed experts. Each stage of this testimony corresponds to a recognized pattern, documented in the international literature, concerning domestic violence, coercive control, and the failure of the child-protection system. What follows does not aim to recount every detail of this story, but to highlight and identify these patterns.

The story, briefly

The woman met her partner in 2005, very young. The relationship, as she describes it, was possessive and controlling from the start, with the violence escalating gradually. While five months pregnant, he hit her inside a moving car, pulled the handbrake, pushed her out onto the road, and began beating her as she lay on the ground. A taxi driver who tried to intervene fled when the man threatened him with a stick. The woman filed her first police report, but withdrew it two days later, under pressure from his family and after being encouraged by the police officers themselves to "give him a chance." "Kids, work it out," they told her. The violence continued after the child was born, culminating in an incident in which, when she told him she was leaving, he held the baby in its bouncer chair outside the balcony railing, on a fairly high floor, telling her "there's no point in this existing" and forcing her to retract her words to save the child. She left for good in January 2008.

After the separation, the father gradually began to display inappropriate behavior toward their daughter. He addressed her with terms like "my woman" and "my sexy girl," kissed her on the mouth, bathed naked with her, and insisted on cleaning her himself after using the toilet in an inappropriate manner. The child, around three years old, gradually began to disclose, first to a psychologist and then to her mother, indecent acts. A long, traumatic legal process followed: the first complaint to the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office over the kiss on the mouth (which was withdrawn), a second, fuller complaint in 2012, a series of expert evaluations, an examination at the Children's House (Spíti tou Paidioú) in 2021 that confirmed the abuse, a 7-0 conviction from the first-instance Mixed Jury Court in 2021, and finally a 6-1 acquittal "on grounds of doubt" from the Court of Appeal in 2023. Today, the mother herself faces criminal prosecution as an "instigator," accused of coaching the child to give false testimony in collusion with the psychologist.

Patterns in the relationship

Coercive control

Beyond the physical violence, the testimony describes a systematic mechanism of control. Her partner did not want her to work, to have her own money, or financial independence, wanting her to remain fully dependent on him — a belief that, as she explains, came from his family of origin, who held that "when a woman has no money, she can't move." He systematically belittled her professional standing and exercised extreme control, creating scenes over trivial pretexts. The combination of financial exclusion, belittlement, and pathological jealousy functioned as a mechanism that kept her tied to the relationship, independent of the individual episodes of physical violence.^[1]

"I've got fifteen hundred euros to spare, I'll go file a report against you right now, saying you saw me and insulted me"

Economic abuse after separation

The economic abuse did not stop with the separation — if anything, it got worse. Knowing she now lived on a day's wage, he would come outside her house and tell her, in his own words, "I've got fifteen hundred euros to spare, I'll go file a report against you right now, saying you saw me and insulted me." He did exactly that, repeatedly, forcing her to appear in court without a lawyer to be acquitted, paying the court fees herself each time. "Because you left me, you'll work and pay all the lawyers," he told her. The international literature has a specific term for this tactic. "Litigation abuse" or "vexatious litigation" is a recognized form of post-separation abuse, in which the abuser uses the legal system itself as a vehicle for ongoing harassment and financial exhaustion of the victim.^[2]

"When a person has this in them — raising a hand, being violent — it doesn't stop with one apology. He'll do it again, and again. And every time, it's worse than the last. That much is certain."

The cycle of forgiveness, family pressure, and the police response

One of the most troubling details of the testimony concerns how her first complaint was handled by the authorities themselves. At the police station where she reported the incident in the car, the officers knew the perpetrator personally because of his profession and family. Instead of treating the incident as an attempted femicide, they urged her to "give him a chance," telling her "he's not that kind of man, we've known him for years." At the same time, both her own family and his were pressuring the couple not to separate, with her family — coming from a more traditional background — advising her to give him chances "for the child's sake." This created a cycle: each time he promised to change, she gave him another chance, and each subsequent episode was worse than the last. A pattern highly recognizable in domestic violence that escalates gradually.^[3] As she herself puts it: "When a person has this in them — raising a hand, being violent — it doesn't stop with one apology. He'll do it again, and again. And every time, it's worse than the last. That much is certain."

The moment of maximum danger

At the most extreme moment of the account, when she told him it was over, he held the baby in its bouncer chair outside the balcony railing on a high floor, telling her "there's no point in this existing." She was forced to immediately retract her words to save the child. This incident reflects one of the most well-documented findings in domestic violence research. The moment a victim declares an intention to leave is statistically the most dangerous period in an abusive relationship, as the abuser, feeling he is losing control, may resort to extreme acts of violence that can escalate as far as femicide — often using the children themselves as a means of pressure.[4]

Love bombing after the decision to separate

After she filed for divorce, he responded with a series of theatrics. He claimed to be ill, claimed to have cancer, shaved his head to gain her sympathy, and proposed marriage abroad with a very expensive ring. When she refused, his behavior immediately turned back to abuse. Love bombing — the excessive, theatrical displays of affection following an attempted separation — is not a genuine change of heart but a tactic for regaining control. When it fails, the abuser quickly reverts to prior behavior.

Patterns in child abuse

Cultivating secrecy

The father systematically made sure to convey to the child that what was happening was "their own secret." Secrecy is fundamental to how child sexual abuse operates. The abuser does not always need to make explicit threats; it is enough to frame the abuse as something special and exclusive, exploiting whatever feelings the child has for him. The "secret" thus becomes a burden of guilt for the child, who experiences disclosure as betrayal rather than relief or liberation.[5]

Controlled dependency: when a parent won't let a child be self-sufficient

Although the daughter was at an age (3.5 to 5.5 years old) where she could largely care for herself, the father insisted on cleaning her himself after using the toilet, in an inappropriate manner, and insisted on bathing naked together with her. This kind of behavior is a classic grooming pattern. The abuser deliberately keeps the child at a developmental stage lower than her actual age, through excessive "caretaking" in functions such as bathing, precisely in order to have legitimized access to the child's body under the guise of parental care.

Research shows that the majority of abusers who live with the child display an unusual eagerness to take on exactly this kind of caretaking task — bathing, changing clothes, helping in the bathroom, staying in the child's room until she falls asleep — as a way of gaining access to and isolating the victim.[6] Tellingly, 70% of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse report that their abuser "accidentally" walked in on them in their room or in the bathroom while they were undressing, even asking to examine their body "to see how they were developing."[7]

Gaslighting the mother

When she confronted him about the inappropriate terms of endearment ("woman of my life," "my sexy girl") and the kiss on the mouth, he never acknowledged the problem, but instead justified the behavior as an expression of love and questioned the very validity of her concern ("what's wrong with it, my own mother used to kiss me on the mouth too"). This systematic denial and reversal is a textbook example of gaslighting, aimed at making the mother doubt her own judgment.

When the abuser turns the child against the protective parent

When the daughter asked her mother why she didn't kiss her on the mouth or on her genitals during diaper changes the way the father did, she added, "Daddy told me you're disgusted by me" — a phrase said in a way that implied the mother was rejecting the child. The father presents his own inappropriate behavior as normal affection, while at the same time undermining the child's trust in the parent who could protect her — one of the most common tactics used by perpetrators of child sexual abuse.

Patterns of institutional failure

A first complaint that was withdrawn

The first formal complaint to the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office concerned the kiss on the mouth. Because the daughter was very young and the mother hesitated, worried she might be "overreacting," she asked that the case not proceed. The behavior, however, did not stop. On the contrary, it escalated over the following years into far more serious acts. The incident shows how important it is to take seriously even seemingly "minor" boundary violations, as they often constitute early warning signs. The mother's own doubt about whether to "pursue" the case, given the child's young age, reflects a widespread but mistaken belief: although the credibility of preschool-age children is often questioned because of their more limited vocabulary, research data show that even toddlers of two or three years form memories of highly stressful events that they can recall accurately even after a significant amount of time has passed.[8]

Independent confirmation from the school

The kindergarten teacher/director called the mother, having noticed that the child was drawing in dark colors, unusual drawings that raised concern within the school environment. This observation, independent of the mother, significantly strengthens the credibility of the overall complaint.

The father's technical advisor even remained in the expert's office, something explicitly prohibited.

Experts of questionable impartiality

The second evaluation was hastily referred to a mental health center, where the psychiatrist assigned to see the child turned out to be a neighbor of the father's who knew him personally. The psychiatrist refused to have the session recorded, behaved in a hostile manner, and later, during a police intervention over unpaid child support, addressed the father by his first name and offered to testify as a witness in his favor in an unrelated case. When the session was interrupted, he sent a letter to the Prosecutor's Office declaring he was unable to continue, without recording anything that had already been said, as though the session had never taken place.

The next referral, to a different court-appointed expert, an adult psychiatrist, took place in an unsuitable setting, without the basic tools required for a forensic interview of a child. The expert threatened the frightened child ("if you don't say what your dad did, you'll sit here until evening"), asked a single closed-ended question ("does Daddy do naughty things at home?") — a question entirely inappropriate for the child's age and the subject matter — and concluded that the child had not been abused, refusing to ask any further questions.[9] The father's technical advisor even remained in the expert's office, something explicitly prohibited, without the mother's advisor — although he noticed it — formally recording the fact.

"Do you enjoy upsetting your dad?"

The role of the social worker

During the supervised contact that followed, the social worker repeatedly questioned the child's own memory ("maybe you don't remember correctly? Did someone tell you to say something?"), allowed the father's family to attend visits en masse without approval, and insisted that meetings take place even when the child was in visible states of panic, at times inducing guilt ("do you like upsetting your dad?"). Having by then lost all trust, the mother recorded the conversations herself — recordings in which the child can be heard crying, saying she remembers what was done to her genitals.

The civil custody proceedings also revealed problems of transparency. When the presiding judge asked to see the child privately, the father, present in the courtroom, signaled to the child with his eyes not to speak — something the mother managed to point out in time. But what exactly was said inside the closed office remains unknown, as the proceedings were not recorded.

Convictions without consequence: a violation of the Istanbul Convention

Despite his repeated (suspended) convictions for abuse against her, and despite the restraining measures he systematically ignored, the civil courts continued to grant him contact and, later, overnight stays with the child. She was told explicitly that she was obligated to hand over the child until a separate court ruled on the matter, "even if he were to kill her, you have to hand her over." This practice stands in direct conflict with Article 31 of the Istanbul Convention, which expressly provides that incidents of violence must be taken into account in determining custody and contact rights, and that the exercise of contact rights must not jeopardize the safety of the victim or the children.^[10]

The double bind of the protective parent

Throughout the process, the mother systematically facilitated contact, exactly as she was legally required to do. Yet this very compliance is often used against protective parents, on the argument that if the abuse she reported had really happened, she would not have let him see the child. Had she refused unilaterally, however, she would have been accused of being an "alienator." It is a trap: whichever choice a protective parent makes, it is likely to be used against them.

Multiple traumatic testimonies

The child had to recount her experience in at least five or six different settings over the course of a decade. When she had to be examined again before the Court of Appeal, by then a teenager, she reacted with despair ("am I going to say the same things again?") and vomited from anxiety. Each repetition reignites the trauma and turns the judicial process into a form of institutional re-traumatization.

Barnhaus: an institutional solution that came too late

The examination at the Children's House (Spíti tou Paidioú) in 2021 —which in Greece has only been operating since November of that year, and only in Athens— was the first time the child truly felt safe, with specialized staff and appropriate conditions. The findings were clear on three points: the child had not been subjected to "brainwashing" by the mother, the maternal environment had adequately protected her, and the child had indeed experienced the indecent acts she described. Had such a facility existed from the start, the case might have proceeded faster, and the re-traumatization could have been avoided.

He subsequently appears to have organized with other accused fathers, and the mother herself found herself facing criminal prosecution as an "alienator"

The acquittal "on grounds of doubt" and the weaponizing of "parental alienation"

At the Court of Appeal, while almost the entire bench was visibly moved on hearing the Children's House testimony — with the exception of the prosecutor and one juror acquainted with the father — the father was acquitted 6-1 "on grounds of doubt." A decision that stands in direct contradiction to the unanimous first-instance conviction and the Children's House findings. He subsequently appears to have organized with other accused fathers, and the mother herself found herself facing criminal prosecution as an "instigator," accused of conspiring with the police psychologist to coach the child into making false allegations.

This pattern is not an isolated Greek phenomenon. In the US, a systematic intimidation campaign has been documented against professionals specializing in child abuse, who face threats and lawsuits from accused parents. The theory of "parental alienation" itself was created in 1985 by Richard Gardner with the aim of diverting the court's attention away from abuse allegations against fathers. It is not recognized by the World Health Organization or by other official bodies, and research shows that its invocation by accused fathers nearly doubles the likelihood that a court will dismiss a mother's abuse complaint.^[12]

In this context, the fact that the mother herself is now accused of being an alienator stands in direct contradiction to what her testimony documents. For more than fifteen years she actively protected the child, systematically facilitated contact wherever the law required it, and never allowed anyone to speak ill of the father in front of the child — not even herself.

An acquittal on grounds of doubt does not mean the court found that the abuse did not happen, or that the child lied.

The myth of the false allegation — what an acquittal "on grounds of doubt" actually means

One of the most critical points in this case, and perhaps the most publicly misunderstood, is the very shift in meaning from "acquitted on grounds of doubt" to "the allegation was false." Legally, the two have no relation to each other. An acquittal on grounds of doubt does not mean the court found that the abuse did not happen, or that the child lied. It simply means that, under the strict majority required for a felony conviction, the necessary judicial certainty "beyond reasonable doubt" was not reached — a very high evidentiary threshold, deliberately strict in criminal justice precisely to protect the defendant, not to validate his innocence.

In this particular case, the distance between this technical legal formulation and the reality of the findings is enormous. Before the acquittal "on grounds of doubt" at the Court of Appeal, this same case had passed through a series of independent evaluations, all of which reached the opposite conclusion. The original juvenile prosecutor had recommended referral, the investigating judge had ruled that criminal proceedings should be brought, the Judicial Council had decided to refer the case to trial, the first-instance Mixed Jury Court had found him guilty unanimously, and finally, the examination at the Children's House — the most methodologically sound and specialized evaluation in the entire process — had explicitly concluded that the child had indeed experienced what she described, and that she had not been coached in any way by the maternal environment.

Five separate institutional bodies — the prosecutor, the investigating judge, the judicial council, the unanimous first-instance court, and the specialized professionals of the Children's House — found that the abuse had occurred. Only the Court of Appeal, and by a 6-1 majority, arrived at an acquittal on grounds of "doubt." Nevertheless, in public perception, and in the subsequent legal treatment of the mother, this single decision is enough to completely reverse the narrative. From a victim who reported credibly, the mother is turned into a defendant accused of instigating a false complaint, as though it had already been judicially proven that the abuse did not occur — something no court ever found.

This confusion is neither innocent nor accidental. It is precisely how the concept of "false allegation" comes to be misused. A judicial doubt, which institutionally exists to protect the defendant, is instrumentally converted into "proof" against the mother who reported. The burden of proof is reversed after the fact. Instead of it needing to be proven that the complaint was false (something no court found), the mere absence of a conviction is treated as if it establishes the lie as fact. In practice, this means a parent who reports child abuse faces a double evidentiary burden: the charge must be proven beyond reasonable doubt for the abuser to be convicted, while a mere doubt — with no positive finding of innocence — is enough for the criminal justice system itself to turn against her.

The assumption that a complaint could be fabricated must, after all, be judged on the basis of actual evidence, not impression. The major international studies on this question converge on the finding that the rate of false allegations of child sexual abuse is small: 2.9% in a study by the Kempe National Center, 4.7% in a study of 1,249 complaints across 100 social services departments, 2.5% in a sample of 551 cases, and under 1% in two recent studies by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Overall, the rate of false allegations does not appear to exceed 5%. Moreover, the absence of forensic medical findings — which is the case in the overwhelming majority of cases, since such findings arise in only about 4% of child sexual abuse cases — does not in any way mean that abuse did not occur. Finally, the recantation of a disclosure is itself an expected phase on the difficult path toward the truth, and it does not diminish the credibility of a child's allegations — it can, in fact, reinforce it.

When the appeal was dismissed by Greece's supreme court (the Areios Pagos), the daughter — by then an adult — stood in front of the statue of Themis on her way out and told her father's lawyer: "You should take that down, the one you have there, that justice is blind. Because justice, unfortunately, has pockets — it isn't blind." It is a phrase that captures the whole of this testimony. This is not a single, isolated failure, but a chain of institutional choices — police officers who knew the perpetrator, experts of questionable impartiality, laws that mandated contact despite the danger, courts that took a decade — each of which, taken alone, might seem like an exception, but which together form a recognizable, repeating pattern. Understanding it is not merely an academic exercise; it is a precondition for the system to be able to protect the next child, earlier and more effectively.

The independent journalism team The Manifold is producing a vidcast series on how the relevant authorities treat those who report domestic violence and/or child sexual abuse, with support from the Open Society Institute – Sofia and co-funding from the European Union, as part of the Media Resilience project.