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It seems to me that the sequence of the two trials is backwards. The alleged mistreatment came first, and led to the removal of the children, which in turn led to all the events covered at this trial. It's nice that we finally have a doctor who examined the children testifying in a genuine courtroom, but his testimony concerned the condition of the children, which is not really relevant to the charges tried in this trial.

From the bits of the doctor's testimony given here, it appears quite possible that serious abuse was committed by Brian Christine, and Ruth may not have had the means to stop it or even report it, because Brian may well have treated her the same way he treated the children. IF a trial on the abuse charges had been held on a timely basis (as it certainly should have been, regardless of whether the parents chose to appear at it or not), and IF that trial had found Brian to be the abuser and Ruth to be another victim, then the girls might have been properly returned to Ruth, conditioned on Brian not having any contact with them without the supervision of social workers. Under that scenario, the kidnapping would never have occurred (at least not from the social workers, and not with Ruth's participation), and with any sort of sane sentencing Brian would have been serving prison time for the abuse at the time the kidnapping occurred.

Can somebody please explain to me why it's okay to take people's children away from them, and not promptly try the parents on criminal charges, in order to establish whether the taking was legally justifiable? If it can happen to guilty parents, it can happen to innocent parents. And children should never be taken from parents for any significant length of time, unless one or both of the parents have been convicted of a crime. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Granted, for a reasonable length of time, the state might have to remove children for their safety, pending a trial. But there doesn't seem to be any time limit at all on the state's keeping of children without affording the parents a trial.

If you were an innocent parent, whose child was taken by the state on the grounds that some injuries which were actually caused by the child's klutziness on the playground, were alleged to have been inflicted on your child by you, how long would it be okay for the state to keep your children without having tried and convicted you for the abuse?