Court trials of child sexual abuse victims should be heard.

Victims of crimes, including the victims of child sexual abuse are waiting for their cases to be heard in Scottish courts. They have now been left in a state of limbo. This is hugely damaging and further compounds the isolation that is felt as a victim of a crime. Whilst there has been further funding given to the third sector for support https://news.gov.scot/news/help-for-childhood-abuse-victims it must be remembered that not all victims will have access to these services. Closure is a crucial stage in the recovery of a victim and any valid therapeutic treatment can only start once legal proceedings have concluded. Some victims will have waited almost a lifetime to have their day in court and be served justice.
To hear through the media and scramble online to find updates relating the uncertainties of solemn trials and the indecision surrounding them adds further to the distress. I ask that victims be reassured that they will not have to wait any longer than is necessary for justice, having had the courage to come forward after a lifetime of carrying the weight of the damages inflicted upon them. Please, with urgency, consider prioritising these cases in what will inevitably be a backlog of trials and consider how the waiting prolongs the anxiety and isolation of victims of all child sexual abuse, especially non recent.

The very nature of being a victim of child sexual abuse causes isolation. Isolation from family and friends and from the wider society that we live in is a well documented fact. With lockdown and the social restrictions imposed upon us many victims of non recent child sexual abuse, who have had the courage to speak out and are involved in live legal proceedings awaiting a court trial are a high risk sector of society.
The impact of re traumatising is very real when yet again one could feel victimised. Victimised this time by the Covid 19 restrictions impacting on their closure of abuse by due process. I believe there is a real danger that suicide rates will greatly increase in this very vulnerable sector of society if they are not acknowledged in person by the COPFS and reassurance given that there cases will be given priority.
https://www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/unprecedented-plan-to-prevent-suicides-during-covid-19-crisis/7027431.article
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2764584