In cases of alleged sexual abuse of an adult complainant who was a child at the time, a trial judge is not necessarily required to warn a jury about inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence, depression or self-harm, the complainant having been asleep before the offences, the complainant's young age at the time, or delay in complaint. A warning is required only where the particular circumstances give rise to a danger of which jurors would otherwise be unaware or would not appreciate, and such cases are likely to be rare. The traditional judicial assumptions about children as unreliable witnesses, including the observations of Deane J and McHugh J in Longman about child fantasy, should be treated with caution in light of modern psychological research.
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