Already suffering from nightmares and the upheaval of having to change schools, this eight year old then had to face more than five gruelling hours on the witness stand.

After claiming that he had his penis pulled by a teacher during a lesson nine months ago, the youngster then had to face both the teacher he accused and a defence lawyer bent on discrediting this claim - with no support from his family in the courtroom.

"How can this be allowed to happen?" asked the youngster's tearful mother. "How can they make my boy stand there alone in court while this lawyer terrorises him. It has been hell for this family since January and my poor child going into court on his own is wrong. They have to change the law, because no child should have to do something like that. And now they have thrown out the case, it has all been a waste of time.

"If we had known he was going to have to do all of this for nothing then we might not have let him be subjected to all of that.

"He said to me, `mummy, all I did was try and tell the truth. They were asking me all these questions and calling me a liar but I was just telling the truth'.

"No child should have to go through that."

The mother of the youngster, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also told The Royal Gazette that her son didn't want to go back to court after the last grilling he was given by defence counsel Mr. Larry Mussenden.

She said the last few months has been "hell" for the family with her son having to change schools after his claim that he was sexually assaulted during a class.

"We put him in another school but it is so hard for him," she continued.

"He misses his friends but they don't want to see him any more. Their parents have poisoned their minds and have made my boy out to be a troublemaker. It has been hard for him, very stressful. He still has nightmares about what happened."

She revealed that she and her husband had yet to tell the youngster that the case had been thrown out, for fear of how he would take the news. Instead the youngster will be told in the presence of a counsellor.

The mother added that she was also upset with the way the school had handled the whole affair and was still hopeful of an appeal by the DPP, although she said that she wouldn't want one if it meant her son having to take the stand again.