Court Order Of Protection (follow up)

This post is actually a continuation of the Court Order Of Protection post I made 2 weeks ago.

Two weeks ago when dad and I filed for a Court Order Of Protection we were given a court date for a hearing regarding this petitioned order of protection. Meanwhile the judge granted me an E.P.O. (emergency protection order) to protect me until the hearing we had today. At this hearing our lawyer explained to the judge the circumstances behind all of this. The judge then required me to explain to him what happened at school with the half brother of the guy who raped me. I reluctantly explained to the judge what happened. Although this all happened in closed chambers being that I am a minor, it was still fairly unsettling. Still I need to get use to it being that in 3 weeks I will be speaking to the court during the sentencing of the guy who raped me.

To make a long story short, the order of protection against the half brother was extended for 18 months. I also found out some more information about the content of the communication between the half brother and the rapist. There wasn't direct threats or even indirect threats made toward me, but the guy who raped me was sharing detailed information about what he did to me to his half brother. The human thing for the half brother to do would have been to tell the rapist that he's sick to be talking about this and break off contact with him. According to what I was told and what the court was told, these communications between them shown a mutual sense of indifference toward my well-being. I think that basically means that remorse isn't being felt by the rapist and the half brother must have been enjoying the descriptions of what the rapist did to me.

My dad made the right choice to take me out of public school and into home schooling for the remainder of this year. Dad is talking about private school for my 11th and 12th grade years. My lawyer, dad, and I have an appointment with the principal of the school I was attending (the school the half brother attends) to inform them of what is going on so that they can further decide if the half brother belongs around other students. My lawyer seems to think that the school board will ultimately remove him from school after he turns 18. I don't know when his birthday is, there's a lot of things I don't know right now. I do know my stress O-meter is maxed out right now.

I was told by the judge that if the half brother has any contact with me I need to call the police immediately and tell them that I have an order of protection against him. The judge said the cops will resolve the situation and if need be arrest him. I also had a concern of my own that I wanted to ask the judge. I asked about my rights to name names or write about all of this in my blog and online support forums. He said in regards to the guy who raped me, I can talk about any and everything I choose to and even mention his name as long as I only stick to the facts submitted in court. Being that I have talked about things that happened to me that never made it into court records, I am going to continue to not disclose his name for the foreseeable future. I was also instructed that there's no law restricting my right to mention the half brothers name, but it would be best to not mention it to keep the chances of frivolous slander accusations to a zero. The short of it is, I will not mention names now or in the future on my blog or forums.

In three more weeks I will face the courts and my rapist for the last time in many years, I hope. In some ways I don't feel like I am ready to speak up in court, but I want so badly for there to be a resolution to all of this. I hope this will be the resolution that I need, in order to start feeling like me again and feel empowered.