A Superior Court judge questioned why state attorneys haven’t yet turned over documents to a family suing New Hampshire’s child protection division for failing to protect two young girls from sexual abuse.
“It feels like a little bit of ‘hide the ball’ going on here,” Superior Court Judge Gillian Abramson said at a hearing on Tuesday.
In April, Abramson ruled the two young girls have “a strong and legitimate interest in ensuring the proper functioning and public accountability of the entities responsible for their care,” and the state’s interest in confidentiality is “motivated purely by their own self-interest in minimizing the public exposure of their alleged errors.”
The lawsuit accuses the Division for Children, Youth and Families; Easter Seals; and CASA-NH of failing to protect two young sisters from “horrific” sexual abuse by their biological parents, despite repeated warnings from both family members and the police. Attorney Rus Rilee filed the lawsuit last October on behalf of the children’s grandparents, who are now the girls’ adoptive parents.
The suit alleges that DCYF allowed the parents to have unsupervised visits with their daughters — then aged 4 years old and 18 months old — even after the Claremont Police Department had begun investigating reports that the couple molested a young boy and girl at a homeless shelter where they were staying. The parents later admitted to the police they had sexually abused their daughters during two of the unsupervised visits in November 2013, according to the lawsuit. The mother and father pleaded guilty in 2014 to felonious sexual assault charges and to manufacturing child pornography. Each was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
The case carries weight because it could shine a rare light on the inner workings of DCYF, which has been under scrutiny since two toddlers under agency watch were killed by their mothers. Most abuse and neglect records are kept confidential under state law, but Rilee is challenging that policy as part of the suit and already has won several key rulings.
Rilee said DCYF has been reluctant to turn over any documents. The hearing on Tuesday focused heavily on motions he filed seeking to force the state to hand over case files, court records and photos, among other documents, related to the girl’s contact with DCYF.
State attorneys said they will turn over the documents but want guidance from the court on how to deal with privacy concerns, such as abuse allegations made against other children that are contained in the file.