Sexual assault of 4-yr-old girl on Carnival ship caught on tape

Carnival Cruise Lines has settled with the parents of a four-year-old girl who was sexually molested by a six-year-old girl on one of its vessels, the site Cruise Ship Rapes.com reported.

The assault—caught on surveillance video—occurred in the Camp Carnival babysitting area aboard the Carnival Legend sometime between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. on the night of July 16, 2010 after the ship had left Belize for Tampa on the final leg of a Caribbean cruise.

Though the baby sitting areas separated children of different age groups, the video shows that the six-year-old was not prevented from entering the area where only 2-5 year-olds were allowed. She crawled under the four-year-old’s  blanket and molested, battered and assaulted her for 25 minutes.

When the parents of the younger girl picked her up from the area, they discovered she had been sexually assaulted.  They demanded to see the videotape. The Guest Services Supervisor and other ship’s personnel initially protested. The ship relented. The parents were shown the real-time video in the presence of the Guest Services Supervisor, the Staff Captain and Hotel Director.

The tape had a time and date stamp and was not disjointed.

The girl was examined by the ship’s doctor who found the vaginal area redder than normal.

Two weeks later, the parents requested copies of the video they had seen from Carnival.

However, the company denied they had ever shown it to the parents.

Instead, it sent videos that were blurred, pixilated and missing 17 seconds of tape. The web site reported that “it was clear the tape had been altered, with non-real time movement."

A judge ordered Carnival to produce real-time videos and they did. However, the actual version that the parents watched was not produced. It simply disappeared.

The parents say their daughter suffered bodily injury, pain, suffering, disfigurement and disability along with psychological and psychiatric conditions resulting from the sexual assault.

Carnival settled with the parents out of court for an undisclosed amount.