Abuse Of Children

SHE HAD a good deal more dignity than I remembered from the days when we worked together. Perhaps it was the passage of time, the segue from clerk to editor, single woman to mother. Or perhaps dignity is the armor you don when you've spent years listening to your daughter describe sexual abuse. Describing how her teacher penetrated her with eating utensils. Describing how her teacher engaged in sex acts with the kids placed in her care. Describing it at home and in the courtroom.It has been seven years.

"Innocence Lost" is a kind of TV journalism we don't see much of these days.Rather than taking a sensational case and emphasizing its most shocking aspects, tonight's "Frontline" report, which airs at 9 on MPT (Channels 22 and 67), aims for understanding.The case examined here is one that's unfolding in Edenton, N.C., where the former owners of a day care center (Bob and Betsy Kelly), three of their employees and two other town residents are charged with 429 counts of sexual abuse of children.