A MOTHER told a judge of the "most awful moment of my life" when a doctor found signs of sexual abuse in her daughter who attended a North-East nursery.
The woman, who cannot be named, said she had carefully considered whether her daughter could have been abused by somebody other than a staff member of Sheildfield nursery, in Newcastle.
"I cannot think of anyone who would have been in a position to abuse my daughter, save than a member of the nursery staff," she said at the hearing of a libel action brought by two former workers at the nursery.
Christopher Lillie, 37, and Dawn Reed, 31, are suing Newcastle City Council, four authors of a report called Abuse in Early Years, and the Newcastle Journal and Chronicle Ltd.
Four years after they were acquitted of indecently assaulting nursery children, the 1998 report concluded they had sexually, physically and emotionally abused many of the children.
The woman said the doctor "advised us that there were physical signs that our daughter had been abused".
The hearing continues today.
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