By Lauren Jaech
The atmosphere in Department 7 was tense on Friday morning as a teenager emotionally recounted stories of abuse she claimed she suffered as a child, all the while pointedly not looking at her father.
Brian A. Miles is on trial facing charges of child abuse and corporal injury on a child.
Mr. Miles’s 16-year-old daughter took the stand to testify about the abuse she allegedly suffered as a child, while her mother was still fighting the defendant for custody rights.
The daughter described several different incidents between her and her biological father, Mr. Miles, including being held underwater by the defendant in a pool when she was three or four years old. She described how her father held her head underwater and said, “this is what you get for not playing.” She was dunked several times; each time being held under long enough that she could not breathe and began to panic.
She described two similar incidents, one in a bath and one in a different pool, that occurred around the same age, three or four.
The daughter then went on to describe several incidents in which the defendant choked her, also when she was around three or four years old.
In one incident that allegedly occurred when the daughter was three years old, she described how Mr. Miles lifted her up against the wall, holding her by the neck with a grip tight enough so that she could not breathe. She testified that he held her there for about 30 seconds.
She then described an incident in which the defendant held a comforter down over her face when she was three years old. She stated that she had felt scared and could not breathe, but was also too afraid to try to scream for help.
When asked about her feelings toward her biological father, the daughter stated that she had had trouble sleeping when staying at his house as a child because she did not know what would happen.
She testified that now she is afraid of the dark because the defendant would lock her alone in the dark for hours as a child. She also had panic attacks when going swimming, up until the age of eight.
She stated that she is still mad at her father for leaving her mother when she was not yet a year old.
Under cross-examination, the daughter also stated that she did not tell any doctors or counselors about the incidents but did tell them to her mother.
Two other witnesses testified on Friday morning, both of them doctors who had treated one of the defendant’s younger daughters.
One doctor testified that he suspected abuse when treating the younger daughter due to a pattern of broken blood vessels around her eyes as well as scattered abrasions.
The second doctor testified that he treated the younger daughter for a suspected allergy that he found she did not have, noting that an allergic reaction would not have caused broken blood vessels.
The trial was set to resume on Friday afternoon with more witness testimonies.
